Deal-breakers hamper hit rom-com’s ability to delight

XIAN Lim (left) evinces growth, while Kim Chiu is an energetic and antic performer.

Kim Chiu and Xian Lim’s latest costarrer, Mae Czarina Cruz’s rom-com, “Bride for Rent,” is doing very well at the tills, making the stars’ love team one of the more bankable screen tandems this season. For us, however, the new production has a deal-breaker in Kim’s still thin and sometimes even whiny speaking voice and placement.

It’s sometimes distracting and irritating to listen to, so we have a hard time focusing on the romantic-comedic-dramatic moment at hand.

Kim is playing a 24-year-old woman in the film, but her thin, immature-sounding voice makes the character come off poorly. True, the movie’s early scenes focus on her ditzy, “crazy” and giddily immature projection, for “comedy’s” sake, but 24 is 24 (also the actress’ actual age)—so, bye-bye, believability.

Another deal-breaker is the new film’s old-hat storyline, about a needy girl agreeing to pretend to be a rich man’s bride so he can collect on his inheritance. It’s no surprise, therefore, that the plot is developed predictably, with the young, “pretend” spouses getting on each other’s bad side—again, for “comedic” purposes.

On the plus side, speaking voice apart, Kim turns out to be a bracingly and “givingly” energetic and antic performer, and Xian evinces growth as an actor since their last costarrer. However, these plus points are sadly whittled down by the production’s general deficiency on point of originality and freshness.

It doesn’t help, either, that Xian’s “purchase” of Kim’s hand in “marriage” is later countered by his grandmother’s (Pilita Corrales) secret move to teach Xian a lesson by tripling his offer and making Kim her secret cohort. This complication makes the proceedings too confusing and convoluted by half, and also works against the integrity of Kim’s character, who comes off as easily “buyable” by the highest bidder.

Of course, she’s agreeing to do all this to make money for her large and impoverished family, but instead of coming off as a heroine, she is depicted as silly putty in the hands of her indolent and excessively dependent “loved ones.”

The inclusion of Kim’s character’s many lazy dependents is supposed to add to the movie’s “madcap” fun factor, but it is more distracting than diverting in execution.

The plotting really bogs down when Kim is supposed to be working in Hong Kong (while actually still being in Metro Manila), so some heavy-handed alibis and schemes have to be resorted to by Xian and his barkada to keep up the improbable ruse.

Again, ostensible comedy is the objective here, but the schemes are generally so obvious that decidedly less than that is achieved.

On the other hand, we credit the production for its generally brisk pacing, which certainly helps keep the fun times going, as all rom-coms should.

While giving credit where credit is due, however, we must note that the excessively escapist proceedings in this film perpetuate stock soporifics that don’t make for the enlightened and engaged viewers we need for our mainstream movies to really improve.

Can’t we put the hoary, old (rich-poor) romantic-fantasy clichés to rest? Can’t we have both fun and realistic, believable events and characters? Others have done it, and so can our filmmakers, if they care about how their movies affect and influence their viewers’ hearts and minds. Whose side are we on, anyway?