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Film review: Bakit Lahat ng Gwapo May Boyfriend?!

MANILA, Philippines – It is a sign of the times that two of the active major movie outfits are releasing one after the other comedies that deal with the growing presence of the gay community. In Star Cinema’s light-hearted The Third Party, a loving and accomplished, same-sex couple have taken into their lives albeit temporarily a woman who was the girlfriend of one of them. This week, Viva Films opens the more rambunctious Bakit Lahat ng Gwapo May Boyfriend?! — again about two guys and a woman. Not another mènage but a frustrating and ultimately infuriating experience for the girl who wants to find out if her new crush is gay or straight.

In Bakit Lahat, indie filmmaker Jun Robles Lana’s follow up to his two great films The Barbers Tale and Behind the Shadow of the Moon, Kylie (Anne Curtis) and her gay boss/business partner and bosom buddy Benj (Paolo Ballesteros) have a maddening time trying to discover the true gender of gorgeous guy Diego (Dennis Trillo) who has been Benj’s childhood friend and life-long secret flame. The whole movie in fact revolves around this mission. Benj claims — or is indulging in wishful thinking — that Diego is gay, and will dear friend Kylie help him confirm it by acting as his “cover girl” or Mata Hari?

The tell-tale signs are all there: Diego is neat and appears in natty clothes like a true-blue metrosexual; his shirts all look pricey and debonair. Likely gay? Check. He is gentle, suave and urbane. Check. He identifies the color of Kylie’s lipstick. Check. He lifts his cup into his mouth with his pinkie turned upward. Check. He goes to the movies with two macho guys who are sweet to each other. Check. A shocking scene in a horror movie drives Diego to shriek involuntarily like a girl. Check, check, check.
Benj gives Kylie a small lesson in gay pronunciation: Diego is not only confirmed (k?n-‘f?rmd). He is k?n-‘fiiiirmd! (more confirmed than just simply k?n-‘f?rmd).
But then Diego introduces to Benj and Kylie a lady of class and beauty, his fiancée (Yam Concepcion), his soul mate in the United States, and may they please handle the planning of their forthcoming dream wedding?

Predictably, Kylie is drawn quickly to Diego. The first time she sees him, he emerges from the swimming pool in just his male bikini, dripping wet and sporting tattoos with just a towel slung on his shoulders. The eyes of buddies Benj and Kylie pop. Their changing views of Diego — or of his sexuality — are a source of displeasure and vexation. It is also the petrol that moves the story forward.

Home to Kylie is an old, cozy wooden house run by Yayo Aguila. Curiously, this house looks similar to the place where Angel Locsin’s aunt Alma Moreno in The Third Party lives. And also, Angel is an events organizer in that movie while Anne is a wedding planner here. Leading ladies now may be crowding one profession.

Complementing the trio of characters are Diego’s tough military father (Michael de Mesa) and his identical twin who happens to be a flaming queer (Michael), rather stylish in drag. That the twins are presented briefly by the director and the actor as decent and dignified, and hardly stereotypes, is a plus point. The father isn’t a stiff martinet and the uncle (or aunt) isn’t a loud, fast-talking queen, one truly fatherly and the other both avuncular and motherly.

At first, Paolo has the tendency to hog the limelight even without much effort, and having realized this, the filmmakers “exile” him elsewhere to allow for Dennis and Anne to shine on their own. And brightly they do. 
One of the most alluring stars of her generation, Anne gets away with a role that is problematic. Played by a lesser actress or a lesser beauty, Kylie would slip into caricature. Still, Anne has the tendency to overact, which may be called for by the role and the satiric tone of the movie. But Kylie’s ranting against gays, closet gays in particular, dominate and nearly spoil the droll spirit of the movie. There is simply too much acrimony, from the opening scene to her drunken moment at a party. She is the personification of millennials’ favorite word — “bitter.” As they would say in the vernacular, “napakalalim ng hugot” because all her previous handsome boyfriends turned out to be gay (thus the title).

Even worse is Benj, himself a closeted individual who hurls insults by calling others “Bakla! Bakla! Bakla!” — meant to be derogatory and offensive, naturally. Self-loathing, as the late National Artist Rolando Tinio commented on a gay film director using the term as an expletive.

Among the Kapuso heartthrobs, Dennis continues to build quite a solid oeuvre as an actor not only of wide cinematic appeal but also of substance — from several leading man roles and action hero or anti-hero, to leader of a religious sect, and a World War II Japanese officer and somebody else’s husband’s lover in that hit TV soap. This movie cements his reputation as both a cool actor and eye candy.