‘Motherhood’ becomes Paolo

MANILA, Philippines — Paolo Ballesteros is the actor to beat after Born Beautiful but sad to say, his succeeding films didn’t impress just as well.

In some assignments, his character has become caricature, which manages to draw laughter for asinine reasons.

But in his recent film, My 2 Mommies, Paolo is back with a vengeance and the brand of motherhood (more like fatherhood) of his character slowly grows with confidence and managed to wrap up a memorable character. The result is that he won audiences at the end of the screening.

Of course, many factors worked in his favor.

For one, the script of Joey Javier Reyes is a well-written one and managed to carve characters that avoided clichés.

The character of Paolo won hands down because of the good contrast provided by the other mother played with conviction by Solenn Heussaff.

He tends to spoil, and she will not have any of that. She has all the rules pinned down for raising a child, but he is the opposite. His character uses instincts more than textbook rules and the result is a wacky film full of lessons — funny and real — on early parenthood.

Apart from the good lead actors, My 2 Mommies is complimented by equally sensitive ensemble.

The lover role of Joem Bascon finds a good contrast with Solenn’s husband, superbly played by Billy Ray Gallion. The story is tied down with a good performance of the child played with casual confidence by Marcus Cabais. His French background gives the film a highly literate flavor even as his reading preferences contrasted with the taste of his biological father.

Regal Films producer Roselle Monteverde with stars Maricel Soriano, Paolo, Solenn, Dianne Medina, Mich Liggayu, Marcus Cabais and Billy Ray Gallion at the premiere night of My 2 Mommies

Maricel Soriano plays wacky mother figure to Paolo and indeed, her brand of hysterics was restrained beautifully by the script of Joey. She was almost her old self, taray and all, but by a stroke of good writing, her character emerged tempered and well-defined, judgmental but forgiving in the end.

The film looks into the predicament of gay couples raising a child and finds abundant humor in every frame of a story that delves lovingly into every gender sensitivity issue. In the beginning, “motherhood” is a strange word in the character of Paolo but midway into the film, an evolution emerged and for once, the reluctant “mother” embraced fatherhood and loving it to the hilt. To the consternation of the official family of Solenn.

The film is a good portrait of gay couples answering the call of parenthood. The character of Marcus looks at the issue with an open mind and the young actor delivers. The good thing is that he doesn’t try too hard and the result is a spontaneous character portrayal.

As it is, My 2 Mommies directed by Eric Quizon is a winner anyway you look at it.

In this film, Eric’s directorial hand is at its best translating Joey’s script into a beautiful tale of two mother figures.

Under Eric, the characters became larger than life and the beauty of it all is that he avoided scenes that would make the character of Paolo an object of derision.

In the end, Regal Films had a winner and indeed, the film is deserving of the Grade A rating from the Cinema Evaluation Board.

My 2 Mommies is now showing in cinemas.