Mother may Ai Ai

Just when you started to think that Filipino movies were going nowhere but south, comes this film that landed on almost everyone’s must-see list. And the movie was just too good to pass up.

Funnywoman Ai Ai Delas Alas’ first solo starrer Ang Tanging Ina (even the title has a hilarious, almost irreverent, zap to it) has broken barriers and captured audiences not usually accustomed to watching local films, like myself and a whole lot of others.

I got to interview ABS-CBN vice president Enrico Santos who said that this Star Cinema movie was the result of boardroom chit-chat among the network executives. (Star Cinema, if you must know is a subsidiary of ABS-CBN). Everyone pitched in his or her ideas and not before long an interesting brainstorming session started. The executives were thinking about what kind of movie to cast Ai Ai in since her popularity is just waiting to peak.

Also, they needed to show the public the talents of a lot of young stars in Star Circle. They were skeptical about Ai Ai at first because it was a high-risk venture; nobody knew how the general public would react to her. All the trending that Star Cinema took seemed to be against her – never before was a comedienne given a solo lead; Ai Ai is no bombshell or a pretty face (obvious ba?); she’s no matinee idol either and has had no box office record. Well, all that is water under the bridge now.

The executives came up with the idea of what life might be like for a single mom if she had 12 mouths to feed with different characters to raise in this country. One wants to get married, another doesn’t know what to do with her life, still another wants "to out" from the closet, and still another wants to have an extravagant debut. Another kid wants to be circumcised because of peer pressure, and so on, all of these bearing down on her shoulders.

According to Enrico, it was ABS-CBN’s president Freddie Garcia’s idea to have all of Ai Ai’s three husbands die on her, while ABS-CBN executive vice president Charo Santos thought of giving Ai Ai so many children, each one born only a year apart.

So why Ai Ai? Obviously she is perfect for the role. She appeals to all kinds of people who find her a person they can identify with. She is so imperfect. Filipinos appreciate people who are sincere and real because we are good at distinguishing the real from the "plastic," and we’ve been up to here with "plastic." And – she doesn’t need a love partner to prop up her career. In fact, if she did, you wouldn’t trust the guy, would you?

For today’s young people, especially the elite, watching local movies isn’t exactly a habit. We simply don’t enjoy them much, because we feel that many local actors can’t act. Some of my friends think it’s baduy to see local movies. But then Tanging Ina found many of us joining the queues in the theaters.

Like many others, I was curious and wanted to see the movie for myself because I heard a lot of people saying how much fun it was. The theater queues showed how it was pulling in all kinds of social classes – from the masa to the office and corporate crowds, the fashionistas even, and the sosi types. I guess these people just wanted to have a good laugh.

Actually, there’s nothing new with the plot. It’s a riot just to see how each of Ai Ai’s husbands ridiculously die (and you thought you couldn’t make an April Boy song seem un-baduy?), how she needs to support her horde of 12 and to find extraordinary jobs to do just that. But because of the way the movie was made, I had to ask myself in disbelief, "How could we finally have made a movie that is this witty?"

It does take a creative mind to make something plain and ordinary into something interesting and refreshing. As Leonardo DaVinci once said, "Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication."

From the start up until the end of the movie my friends and I were laughing. I hadn’t laughed this hard over a movie for quite a while now. Frankly, it was better made compared to some Hollywood comedy flicks. And I wasn’t surprised to hear that this movie beat even The Matrix Reloaded in terms of opening-day gross earnings. I think this is a sign that we should give ourselves some credit because the after all the Pinoy can do it.

So what makes this Pinoy movie different from the others? A lot! Compared to the other Pinoy comedies that we try to stay away from because we know it would just be a waste of time, Tanging Ina did not use the same old shallow antics where all they do is act stupid and best of all there was no need for R18 type of toilet humor to make it funny. No dance sequence in some beach after they rescue the damsel from the kidnappers. It has wit. It is snappy and fast-paced. There’s no need for anyone to strip naked, certainly not the lead star, or to blow up an already dilapidated car to smithereens.

Another plus was the chemistry of the actors, even if we didn’t know some of them. Although they seemed to have gone a little overboard in the makeup. A friend whispered to me that she could easily see Marvin Agustin’s blush-on. And it seemed that the furnishings in their house were a bit high-end for a working-class family. But that’s Philippine movies for you, folks.

But here’s the catch, people who are used to watching local movies have the edge compared to those who are not really into Pinoy flicks, such as myself, because there are so many punch lines from the movie they got from other Pinoy flicks, mostly movies of Ate Vi, Sharon and so on. So I missed out on some of these spoofs. I had to guess which movie the punch lines came from – or better yet, listen carefully to the moviegoers as some people would blurt out where it came from. And the funny thing is that since these lines were taken from other films (and popular commercials) they created a bigger impact in Tanging Ina than in their original films.

What’s also striking about the movie is that it was able to deliver a serious message lightly (aren’t you sick and tired of preachy movies that leave you feeling heavy and depressed?). In short, it was no hard sell. Just when you’re on the verge of tears, something tugs you back to laughter. To better understand my drift, focus on the small details in the movie; those small instances are the reasons why you just can’t stop laughing.

I’m not going to give them out and preempt you, but to give you a glimpse, take the "naughty" poster in the children’s bedroom (though the poster was artistically done), you wouldn’t think of putting a poster like that in a kid’s room. And Ai Ai’s door was full of posters of men next to an altar with the pictures of her three dead husbands. And the song, "This guy’s in love with you, pare" I guess will soon become a catch phrase.

I don’t know if this movie is award material, but the irony of it is, many films that have won awards in the past aren’t even memorable. With the success of Tanging Ina, Ai Ai has wooed back people who have stayed away from Filipino films until now, and that should be worth more than any award. The admiration should last a long time. Other stars can’t make the same claim – that they made so many people laugh and cry at the same time.

This movie is a concrete proof of how colorful the Filipino lifestyle is.

What’s the moral of the story? Stay away from those P50 circumcisions. Though for now, it’s still uncertain when I’m gonna watch a local flick again.

And to Ai Ai, if she’s reading this, very good job.

Tanging Ina tidbits I got from Enrico:

During the taping a ghost once kissed Marvin Agustin, and it was caught on the video assist. It looked like a humanish cloud bending over him while he was sleeping.

Oddly, the mute kid "Tenten" is actually the noisiest of all the kids.

Ai Ai once laughed out so much in the shoot she had an asthma attack and shooting had to be packed up because she was rushed to the doctor.

Alwyn Uytingco, who played the gay son, is actually the most macho one, who goes for heavy metal.

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E-mail the author: ketsupluis@hotmail.com.