Long litany of ‘required’ atonements

DEE. Incredibly noble, “transformative” character shift.

Last month, “Muling Buksan Ang Puso” concluded its storytelling, and it was a lallapalooza of an ending, with three of the series’ leads at death’s door—namely, its young female protagonist, Julia Montes, and the half-siblings who both loved her, played by Enrique Gil and Enchong Dee—!

Days before, we were already speculating that the “bad boy” portrayed by Dee was most likely going to “have” to die, so his character would “atone” for his sins and end up smelling like roses. And so it came to pass, with Dee’s heart transplanted into Gil’s chest, so that Montes would live happily ever after with her one, true love—!

Such noble, “transformative” character shifts are par for the incredible teleserye course—and so is the flurry of “retroactive” pleas for forgiveness that series villains are typically made to intone before a long-running complex-compound melodrama can be concluded.

Thus, the perpetual irritant played by Cherie Gil finally realizes what a royal pain she’s been in many long-suffering characters’ sides, and abjectly apologizes to everyone within hearing distance!

Ditto for Pilar Pilapil saying super-sorry to Susan Roces for “stealing” Dante Rivero away from her and thus launching the protracted feud that tears them apart, which eventually involves the members of the next generation! Not to be excluded, Christopher de Leon similarly begs Susan’s forgiveness for cruelly and brutally avenging himself on her and her progeny—!

After all is said and done, however, the viewer isn’t really moved, just relieved that the long litany of “required” atonements is finally over.

Looking back on the recently concluded series, we realize that, while its mature leads were made to come up with florid and over-the-top portrayals, their collective contribution is more substantial than its young leads’ comparatively skittish and shallow efforts.

We know that the young stars were needed to reach the generally youthful (and female) audience for teleseryes—but, couldn’t they have gotten performers capable of deeper, less for-the-fans portrayals?

After all, their characters were made to run the gamut of extreme emotions, so deeply felt characterizations were called for—but sadly weren’t forthcoming.

On point of dramatic storytelling, we recall some scenes in the series that came off well and thus made viewer empathy easy to achieve.

Unfortunately, the turgid twists and turns that the plot and subplots were made to take soon distracted viewers from the valid dramatic points that the production was trying to make. This flurry of complications was meant to keep viewers attentive and excited, but they frustrated the emotional “logic” that the actors were attempting to establish.

This observation cuts to the core of the local teleserye situation from TV actors’ point of view: Even the best and most experienced thespians can’t come up with a solid and integral characterization, because they keep adjusting their focus and fulcrum to keep their performances “exciting” and “eventful.”

After vainly trying to make consistent thespic sense of their assigned characters’ erratic behavior, many of them give up the fight and just do what’s expected of them, even if they can’t “emotionally legitimize” all those erratic changes.

Surely, they deserve better treatment than this! So, why do they put up with it? Because they get paid very well, indeed.

Still, money isn’t everything—or, is it? Perhaps it’s time for our iconic actors to reassess their priorities—and rethink their options!