Notes on Man and Wife

Laurice Guillen's Man and Wife is the tragic story of a couple, Carding (Gabby Concepcion) and Luisa (Jodi Sta. Maria) who are repeatedly cockblocked by their unsuspecting child. The unfortunate interruptions of sexy time (tm) are punctuated by a thunder storm, which seems to indicate their horniness is a supernatural trigger for adverse weather phenomena. This all comes to a head during the final moments when, during the third such instance of potential cockblocking, said couple locks their child out of their room as they do the deed, traumatizing her for life thanks to 1) the thunderstorm that isn't going anywhere and 2) the sounds of their lovemaking.

But enough of that, there's actually a story in between the first cockblock and the last. The film is actually based on characters from the long-running radio drama series/teleserye Gulong ng Palad, which has been running intermittently in one form or another since the seventies. The setup is simple enough: Carding and Luisa are two lovers, but their respective families aren't shipping this OTP, so shenanigans ensue. In this iteration of the story, Carding and Luisa have settled their differences with their families by not settling them (ha) and running away to America. As the film begins, Carding is then compelled to return to the Philippines because his estranged mother Menang is sick. He brings along his family for the ride. When they return, shit seems to have hit the fan in their small community: Mayor Menang is sponsoring a mining establishment that is wreaking havoc on the local population, and has killed or maimed several people, including people in or close to Luisa's family.

The film feels VERY dated. This is a film that would have been halfway decent in 1982, but it's 2019 and soap operatics like this don't really click anymore. That isn't even including the cheesy voiceover and the old fashioned sexual politics. For some reason, the film isn't marketed as based on Gulong ng Palad - maybe the added marketing would have sold a couple more tickets, or...?

The plot points of the movie seem appropriate given that it's election season, but it does carry with it a number of unfortunate implications (so townsfolk can't solve their own problems unless the collective action is headed by a rich outsider?) And the central conflict between Carding and Luisa feels too much like an Idiot Plot. Maybe this lack of communication stems from the fact that the kid cockblocked them too much over the years.

Man and Wife isn't a bad film per se, and it's actually decently acted. The film is just very old fashioned. In a cinematic landscape where there are limited resources for making films, I'm finding it hard to justify its existence.