A life of laughter & heart-ship

Our OFW experience/phenomenon has been captured in film over the years, tearjerkers such as Dubai and The Caregiver coming immediately to mind. With GMA Films’ I.T.A.L.Y., thanks to Mark Reyes’ deft directorial touch and Senedy Que’s screenplay, the experience is given a much-deserved lighter, and humor-filled, perspective. The prism is one of looking for love in the midst of eking out a livelihood while working abroad — in this case, a European cruise ship. Our guide to this ensemble cast effort is Des (full name Destiny, as played by Jolina Magdangal), and we encounter such characters as Stella (Rufa Mae Quinto) the on-board singer/entertainer, Des’ fellow housekeeping workers Lovely (Eugene Domingo) and Nathan (Mark Herras). And as passengers on the ship, we have the enigmatic, love-torn Paolo (Dennis Trillo), and young socialite Phoebe (Rhian Ramos) who’s traveling with her mother (portrayed by real-life aunt and GMA Artist Center head Ida Ramos-Henares). The merry-go-round that ensues as relationships develop and ebb, as hopes are raised and dashed, and how matters resolve themselves both on the ship and back here in Manila, are uniformly sprinkled with laughs and light tears.

Savona, Venice, Rome, Pisa, Genoa, Florence in Italy, Barcelona in Spain, and Tunisia — these cities and countries form part of the backdrop to the unfolding stories, and while direk Mark and director for photography Jay Linao make optimum use of the diverse locations, the stories and what transpires on the cruise ship remain the center of all that’s going on. What’s interesting to note is how touches are added to make the characters fully-realized, and not just mere cardboard cut-outs. This is especially so in the case of Destiny. The fetish she has for stuffed pigs, the vignettes in Manila with her wheelchair-bound father (Pen Medina), a widower, still preparing milk for her in the hope she’ll still grow taller, and the bantering that goes on between Des and her brothers before departing for Europe — they all add up to a character we feel we truly know and can sympathize with. Similarly, the back stories of Lovely and Stella add to the fullness of their portrayals, an understanding of their dreams, apirations and frustrations, motivating us to give them slack whenever some character flaws emerge.

In my estimation with the scene of Des’ phone conversation on board the ship with her father and brothers, Jolina takes the crown for truly carrying the film. The scene is a pitch-perfect example of how direk Mark deftly has us viewers moving from laughter to tears and back to laughter in split-seconds. The scene wonderfully encapsulates the puso that the film is in possession of; how all the laughter, broad slapstick and one-liners can be tempered by pathos and genuine tearful sadness. For me, that more than made up for the rather tired formula of having Stella speak in song lyrics. I’ve seen that gimmick in numerous other films, and while the audience lapped it up, I found that “avenue” too tried and tested. To her credit, it’s Rufa Mae’s flair for delivering these lines that still gave life to this formula. Eugene is her irrepressible self, and it’s great to see her being given so many lines and scenes. Dennis is more moody actor than comedic, and the role given to him allows him his dramatic moments; and there is one scene when he wonderfully lightens up — when Paolo and Destiny have to share a hotel room for one night. Rhian and Mark in the “opposites attract” young love side story inevitably play second fiddle to the main narrative strands, but they both hold their own, and it’s good to see them developing their acting range.

The last project I viewed directed by Mark Reyes would have been Resiklo; and if that film, within the context of Philippine Cinema, was one of the best examples of integrating live action with Computer Generated Images, it’s refreshing to see how Mark ably tackles a film where humor and the human element are the foci of the film.