The act of empathy is a crucial part of loving and being loved, in that our closeness to another person is enhanced by trying to see and understand the world in that other person's shoes. That act of perception is a big part of fiction in general. In her body of work, Sigrid Bernardo has often explored this concept in different ways: in Untrue (2019), all the film's narrators are unreliable, each point of view unveiling small pieces of a bigger picture; in Mr. and Mrs. Cruz (2018), two people empathize and heal over their shared heartbreak; in the charming yet flawed Kita Kita (2017) the act of (not) seeing is expressed in both literal and figurative ways. Her latest film, Walang Kaparis, draws many parallels to Kita Kita, improving upon that formula in many respects.
Jojo (Empoy Marquez) works as a mime and painter in the streets of Paris. He's haunted by the face of a woman in one of his pictures - a face he can't quite remember. One day, he comes across Marie (Alessandra De Rossi), who looks exactly like the woman in the picture. Marie takes to Jojo like they've been together for a long time, while to Jojo, this is the first time they've met. The film is generous with its clues, and even partially astute or genre savvy viewers will be able to figure it out - but that's beside the point. As Jojo (and by extension, the audience) learns more about the nature of his relationship with Marie, he regains the perspective that he lacks, eventually seeing circumstances from Marie's point of view.
Most of the enjoyment of Walang Kaparis stems from the unlikely chemistry from both leads - the same chemistry that contributed to Kita Kita's runaway success with audiences. If you are not excited at the prospect of hearing Empoy and Alex shoot the shit for almost two hours, this film will do nothing for you. But if what I described is totally your jam, then you're in for a treat: this is both a 'greatest hits' collection and an evolution of themes that Bernardo has been exploring throughout her filmmaking career.
Of Jason Paul Laxamana's pandemic body of work, some of his films explore the transactional nature of some human relationships, to varying results. His previous Expensive Candy (2022) took a look at sex work and the parasocial relationships that arise from them. In Baby Boy, Baby Girl, the film explores the practice of sugar dating, where wealthier clients give expensive gifts to their partners in exchange for companionship.
Josie (Kylie Versoza) has tried to make it with a startup business but things just isn't clicking. She then turns to her ex boyfriend Seb (Marco Gumabao) who has made a living being a sugar baby to a number of people. He's joined by a band of other sugar babies, who flaunt the products of their (mostly) transactional relationships: the more fancy the gift, the better. As Josie learns the ropes and gets used to relationships without all the extraneous stuff, she finds she's pretty good at it.
The thing is, something is lost without all that "extraneous stuff" in the way. According to the film, relationships built on sugar dating either don't last - in which case the sugar parent moves on to another - or they evolve into something more, in which case the transactional nature of the relationship (at least, the financial part) disappears. There's an interesting scene in the latter half of the film where Josie and Seb hook up and every step of their lovemaking is treated as a transaction, though this is just an excuse for the fact that they are both still pretty much into each other and they'd eventually have hooked up anyway.
The somewhat risque ("adult?") romantic comedy with respect to contemporary local cinema is something kind of different, but altogether the same: it's the same old formula but with most of the cutesy fluff removed. I'm not ashamed to say I don't mind more of these being made.
The original Working Boys (1985) with TVJ is a Mel Brooks-ian, loosely constructed mishmash of comedic vignettes, where the three titular everymen do everyman stuff, fix everything from alarm clocks to demonic possession and get into comedic hijinks. I get the feeling after rewatching the film (it's free on Youtube via the official Viva channel) that this is a film where you are meant to see your favorite comedic actors do funny things. This is not a serious dramatic movie about the perils of the gig economy, and it would be silly to think otherwise. Therefore, all I ever expected from Working Boys 2 was for the film to have charming leads and funny jokes. News flash: this new film does not have either of those things.
Instead of being savvy and self-employed, the five titular characters of Working Boys 2: Choose Your Papa are unemployed bums unsuccessfully trying to be gainfully employed. One of them loses his chance because he has breath so bad his mere existence should be classified as an act of bioterrorism. Another one has the mental processing power of a paramecium, holding up the rest of a crowded elevator because his brain crashed.
I'd tell you their names if I could, but to be honest that's one of the biggest problems with the film: none of the main characters are worth remembering in the first place. Yes, some of the actors like Mikoy Morales are great in other films, but there's nothing substantial for them to work with here. I'd also say none of them work well with comedy, or at least this type of comedy, and the one legit "comedian" here is Bayani Agbayani, whose schtick is equally painfully unfunny: his character Tso Papi's main thing is that his main mission in life is to breed his wife Tsa Bebeth (Debs Garcia) - by the end of the film they succeed, and celebrate her pregnancy by having sex again. Haha.
The five boys eventually become all-around fixers on their own with a 21st century twist: they launch the Choose Your Papa app, where they offer their services on there for a price. This quickly goes out of hand as they are wrongfully accused by a vengeful party of using the service to do lewd things, though thankfully this is resolved... and that's it. Boring, unfunny, and forgettable, it's better to just stick with the original, which is way better and you don't have to spend a peso to watch it.
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