A marriage doomed to fail

After catching the three horror-suspense entries, I wasn't up to anymore MMFF films, especially after all the post-festival ruckus, but then I read that Star Cinema's Kasal, Kasali, Kasalo did indeed surpass the box office earnings of MMFF Best Picture winner Enteng Kabisote, thereby making it deserving of the top prize according to the MMFF criteria.

It can be recalled that Star Cinema managing director Malou Santos wrote in a letter of appeal, "In the case of Kasal, Kasali, Kasalo, if it overtakes Enteng Kabisote 3 in gross receipts, will the awards then be remanded and handed to Kasal? We doubt that, as much as we doubt the integrity of this criterion." Well, well. My interest revived, I dragged a friend to the theaters to catch the Juday-Ryan starrer on its tail-end run and before the Christmas season Hollywood films waiting in the wings finally crowd it out. We settled comfortably into our seats, expecting to be grinning by the end of the movie.

On the one hand, while I wouldn't exactly call Jose Javier Reyes one of the best directors we have around, I've always thought his recent work to be among the better commercial films. If there's one thing the guy is, he's really a crowd-pleaser. He knows what makes the movie-goers tick-and that it's not anything idiotic. On the other hand, while I wouldn't exactly call myself a fan, I like Judy Ann Santos, especially in romantic comedies.

Obviously, it's the strength of Kasal, Kasali, Kasalo that it casts real-life lovers Juday and Ryan Agoncillo. Without the need to establish chemistry and rapport, it takes but fifteen minutes into the film for their characters Angie and Jed to get married without the viewer questioning why-until nearing the end of the film, that is. As the credits rolled, I sat up in my seat wondering if I had watched a love story. The film left me with the nagging impression that theirs was a marriage doomed to fail-and it wasn't because of the incompatibilities in their upbringing, values, and families.

To begin with, Jed proposed to Angie five months after knowing her because he couldn't stand up to family pressure to move to America. It's already a bad start. Three months after the wedding, as they're starting on their mortgage (P24,000 a month for a home in a newly-developed subdivision), Angie gets pregnant. She's a writer for the news and current affairs division of a television network; he works for a magazine and is established to be irresponsible with money. I should think their finances are strained. Judging by the size of Angie's belly, eight months later, she catches him having an affair, confronts them both, and leaves Jed. They only reunite when she gives birth on the day of their first wedding anniversary. Why? Because, apparently, the baby makes them a family.

At this point, to accept that Angie has forgiven Jed ("Hindi kita pinagpalit," he tells her when they meet to talk things over, "Tumikim lang ako ng ibang ulam."), one is forced to look back and think if he has any redeeming qualities and character traits that would make him a good husband, father, and provider. Sure, he runs after Angie every time she walks out, and he has to take her mouth, and he has to accept that Angie doesn't want to sleep with him while she's pregnant, and he finds her pregnant self "panget" (his words!), but in the ultimate assessment, no way did their struggles as a newlywed couple merit his turning to the arms of another woman. So it was plain lust. That, and the fact that he was so blasé about it, makes Jed so not husband material. One is also forced to evaluate their relationship, and see nothing but kilig moments that do not a marriage make. That Angie gives him blanket forgiveness just because she just gave birth to his son, makes her a very stupid woman.

Try as I might, the only way I can see a happy ending for this marriage is to think of Angie and Jed as Juday and Ryan, playing thin roles in a movie that's a thinned-out version of what was a Film Development Council of the Philippines winning script. And, the only way I can accept the movie's treatment of infidelity is to remind myself that it was not written and directed by a woman. Email your comments to [email protected]. You may also post them at http://channelsurfing-freeman.blogspot.com.