Oh, My Ploning!

Film review: Oh, My Girl!

MANILA, Philippines - Having honed his craft as an art director and production designer, Dante Nico Garcia’s directorial debut, Ploning (where he also wrote the screenplay), showed a highly-stylized and structured approach to filmmaking. In Ploning, a small, provincial seaside community is dissected against the backdrop of passions, rituals and their daily living. Measured, and in detail, Garcia’s exposition showed a master storyteller and visual artist at work; so it would seem a radical turnaround to find his current project distinctly looking like a broad, feel good, romantic comedy. This would be Regal Entertainment’s Oh, My Girl!, featuring Judy Ann Santos and Ogie Alcasid — cross-dressing and looking like a local Mrs. Doubtfire. And yet, one discovers that there is a consistency in vision and approach to filmmaking with Oh, My Girl! It may be categorized as mainstream comedy, but one can’t deny the very distinct Dante Nico Garcia touch, his stylized definition of comedy.

The film opens with two, really close street children, Biboy and Opaw, begging outside a provincial church. Both orphans, the girl is eventually adopted by a fading starlet (Carmi Martin), who channels all her frustrations on the young girl, turning her into Darling (Judy Ann), one of the more popular stars of our local movie industry. Meanwhile, Biboy (Ogie), who ran away from the orphanage, becomes the ward of the local cross-dressing gay queen (Roderick Paulate), and now spends his days hanging around the railway stations, and seeing Opaw in most women he encounters. In some convoluted manner, Biboy somehow becomes convinced that one of Darling’s PAs is Opaw — and eventually realizes it could actually be Darling. Of course, he’s nothing more than a speck of dirt in Darling’s eyes, but by cross-dressing, becomes part of Darling’s entourage, and in the course of the plot, her most trusted confidante.

This sets up the scenario for a game of Who Can You Trust?, with underlying themes of friendship, identity, the pressures of being in show business, and knowing your roots, all played up for broad laughs. A number of cameos, including a Mega-cameo, helps keep the jokes flying; and while at one level, the humor is easily absorbed, there also exists a level where the same jokes are played with something more personal and stylized in mind. These “insider jokes” form part of what gives the movie the very personalized Garcia touch. The last time I saw so many “insider jokes” was in the animated film Shrek, where one could enjoy the film on its face value, or appreciate it on another level, when aware of the digs and allusions to real personalities in the industry.

What’s amazing is seeing how all the actors are so sympathetic to Garcia’s very unique, stylized vision. This is especially so in the cases of Carmi and Roderick, playing their roles in “high camp.” Humor is both situational and derived from one liners: True friends can take the farts of each other in stride; facial moles and bangaws, allusions to previous film projects of Judy Ann, and so on. So while plausibility is not a big factor in this movie, one has to admire the very personalized approach Dante uses in treating romantic comedy.