Film review: Ang cute ng movie na ’to!

"Cute" is one of the most used and abused adjectives in the English language today. Women talk about Brad Pitt cute, and there’s Santa Claus or Eeyore cute, and yet they’re worlds apart. There’s kitten and baby seal cute, and there’s bulldog and shar pei ugly/cute. Ang Cute Ng Ina Mo!, the new film of Star Cinema and Viva Entertainment, takes pleasure in constantly upping its’ "pa-cute" quotient. And judging from the audience at the premiere I attended, it successfully mines a need for people to be lightly amused, entertained and just simply enjoy a film, regardless of whether the plot is simplistic or outrageous. Ang Cute Ng Ina Mo! looks to be the perfect antidote to the serious and more sober side of our Catholic/Holy Week experience. Opening on Black Saturday, it promises to be one of the more diverting options for a lot of people who want to escape the summer heat by heading to the malls and cinemas.

Directed nimbly by Wenn Deramas, the film boasts of a stellar cast headed by comedy queen Ai-Ai de las Alas, Anne Curtis, Luis Manzano and funny-woman upstart Eugene Domingo. Hilarious support is provided by John Lapus and DJ Durano, and the whole cast takes glee in interpreting the story of Mel Mendoza-del Rosario.

The long-ish prologue sets the tone for the manic mayhem and high-jinks that ensues. It starts at the Manila International Airport as "Ferdie and Meldy" are fleeing the country and Georgia (Ai-Ai) is also about to leave with her Australian "crony" boyfriend. Madly in love with Ai-Ai’s character, the Aussie boyfriend takes care of their love daughter as Ai-Ai proceeds to the Ladies’ Room. As her luck, or lack of it, would have it, the passengers all have to board while she’s in the toilet. Naturally, she misses the plane, and what ensues are hilarious vignettes of her trying to leave for Melbourne over the following years to reunite with boyfriend and daughter. To have the money to leave, she even agrees to marry a patis magnate from Malabon, who expires on his wedding night and leaves Ai-Ai with a smelly business and fortune. A waif appears out of nowhere and she adopts the boy (who eventually becomes Luis Manzano’s character).

Fast forward 20 years later. In order to waylay the plans of her father to go back to Ai-Ai, their daughter Christine (Anne Curtis) and her Filipina nanny (Eugene Domingo), who speaks with an Aussie accent, come back to Manila to "dig the dirt" on Georgia. The comic situations come fast and furious, and direk Wenn ably avoids lingering on any one scene. There’s a "chop-chop" element to some of the sequencing but we forgive the editing because of the enthusiasm the cast exhibits in going through their paces.

What’s a delight to watch is how Luis Manzano ably takes to comedy; his scenes with Anne are enjoyable precisely because we least expect the physical and slapstick comedy that’s generated by the couple. Eugene is an unintentional scene-stealer, running after John Lapus’ character; explaining herself to Christine by remarking, "He’s not gay, just very feminine." The themes of family bonding, unrequited parental love, and petty jealousies borne out of familial misunderstandings are given a feel-good glow through comedy.

And there are poignant moments like when Christine asks Georgia who was her first love. One highlight shows Ai-Ai using the speech of GMA when she reconciles with her family. It’s moments like these that guarantee to make the film such a riotous success with the audience