A different ‘V’ story

Film review: Elise

MANILA, Philippines — The trouble with watching a Valentine offering is that you always presume you’ve seen them all.

Good-looking love teams are given the project and as always, you wished you opted for a horror film instead. Because more often than not, the so-called Valentine offerings are utterly predictable with equally predictable stories.

But to one’s relief, one had a good time watching Joel Ferrer’s Elise.

With young-looking lead stars, one expected a typical teenybopper schmaltz with dancing ensemble at the end.

But lo and behold, Elise was different.

For one, the script hews to reality and the characters looked utterly real and down to earth. You see traces of your first love and your first night out and the intimate dialogues that ensue.

For one, the lines delivered by couples caught in a long queue in a motel were to me the most hilarious part of the movie.

As it is, the movie lives everyone’s love life at its early and awkward stages.

But as life’s lesson will tell you, romance is tentative but there is something worth keeping when love blossoms beyond the grave.

How direk Joel wrapped it all up in a most haunting yet funny way is a tribute to his directorial competence.

The movie offers a bit of music education as it uses Beethoven’s popular piano piece, Fur Elise in the music box sequence of the film. The signature music truly enhanced the story of young love.

In a surprise show of sensitivity, Enchong Dee and Janine Gutierrez breezed through their parts with flying colors.

The ensemble acting is at once commendable but special mention should be made of these new faces, Victor Anastacio and Miel Espinosa who can be comic yet so compelling and believable. There’s no one like them in the local cinema circuit.

One isn’t surprised the movie got an A rating from the Cinema Evaluation Board.

One thought the audience gave the same approval on the premiere night they cheered the movie.

Elise — produced and released by Regal Films — is now showing in cinemas. It also stars Laura Lehmann, Pilita Corrales, Jackie Lou Blanco, Krystal Brimner, Geson Granado, Archie Adamos, Allan Paule, Andrea del Rosario and Erin Ocampo, among others.