"Let the Love Begin" stars two real love teams: Richard Gutierrez-Angel Locsin who have their own following with the hit telefantasia "Mulawin", and Mark Herras-Jennylyn Mercado who are the winners of the first "Starstruck" contest. "Dreamboy" is a gamble for ABS since Piolo Pascual and Bea Alonzo are paired with each other and not with their tried and tested screen partners, Judy Ann Santos and John Lloyd Cruz.
Both films are written by screenwriters who got their training from TV, RJ Nuevas and Susan Doctolero for the former, and Katski Flores for the latter. Both are also megged by directors who were honed on TV before they were given breaks on the big screen, Mac Alejandre for the former and Gilbert Perez for the latter.
Mac has more experience as a director of movies that launch love teams, having launched the likes of Donna Cruz-Ian de Leon in "Habang May Buhay" and "Dahil May Isang Ikaw", and Angelu de Leon-Bobby Andrews in "Wala Na Bang Pagibig" and "Ikaw Na Sana". This shows in "Let the Love Begin", which we saw at its premiere night at SM Megamall. The fans of the two love teams were there in full force. We thought we’d get deaf from all their loud (and we mean, really loud!) shrieks during the "kilig" moments of their idols, particularly when Mark Herras kissed Jennylyn Mercado on the lips after he discovers that Jennylyn’s suitor, Geoff Rodriguez, is gay.
The film is a fan movie reminiscent of the Regal romances in the ’80s starring the Regal babies, but it’s also a glossy well-made romance with all the crowd-pleasing commercial elements in place. Some scenes are just too saccharine you can contract diabetes from watching them.
Richard is really a born matinee idol who can be photographed from any angle. Angel is oozing with sex appeal, especially in her swimming scene where she comes out of the pool in her bathing suit and shows that she’s the shapeliest young actress in her batch today.
Mac and his writers wisely chose to concoct a simple straightforward love story based on the usual poor boy meets rich girl story. Eric (Richard) is a brainy orphan raised by his lola (the legendary Gloria Romero) and they live in a rented room in a crowded accessoria. He works as a janitor in a big school and studies at night. He gets tongue-tied everytime he sees the object of his affection, Pia (Angel), the only daughter of a rich businessman (Tonton Gutierrez) who wants her to finish a business course in college even if she’s more inclined to be a painter. Eric helps Pia in accomplishing her assignments secretly as he does not have the courage to tell her he loves her face to face.
When Eric finally decides to verbalize his feelings for Pia, she has already flown to the US with her father who is seeking treatment there. Five years quickly pass. Eric is still a janitor working in a big business conglomerate and Pia turns out to be one of his bosses. Once again, he bails her out when she has problems and they become closer to one another. But still, he’s not brave enough to tell her how he really feels. When he’s about to do that, Pia has already mistakenly thought that the guy who helps her secretly all the time is Uno (Paolo Contis) and agrees to be his girlfriend. Brokenhearted, Eric accepts the scholarship being offered to him to study in the States.
The film’s second love story concerns Luigi (Mark), a playboy who ignores his tomboyish best friend, Alex (Jennylyn), who’s obviously in love with him. After college, Alex blooms to be an attractive young lady, ultimately wins the heart of Luigi, and it’s her turn to play coy this time.
It’s easy to predict that these two pairs of lovers will no doubt end up eventually in each other’s arms. The problem of Mac is how to make a worn-out vehicle more interesting for the fans. To solve this, he resorts to tried and tested formulas (like the final reunion of the lovers at the airport which has already been used in films like "My Only Love" and "Ano Bang Meron Ka") and sure-fire comic touches that make the on screen goings-on easier to take. We particularly like the casting of that nerdy Chinese guy who stalks Angel up to the film’s concluding sequence.
This film is not designed to win awards, but the viewers were reacting properly to all the ingredients that Mac engineered to make them swoon and scream with delight. It’s like their on conditioned reflex. If the warm reception to the film of the premiere night crowd is any indication, then the film surely has accomplished its intentions and is hitting its target market effectively. Another element we like about it is the inclusion of faith and the power of prayer in the story, as seen in the church scenes where Gloria Romero sells candles to devotees and where she meets Angel.
‘DREAMBOY’ also tries hard to be a crowdpleaser. Piolo is ABS-CBN’s most bankable young actor at the moment so he is paired with Bea, who is apparently being prepared to follow in the footsteps of their previous fair-haired girl, Kristine Hermosa, whose career is expected to dim now that she is married to Diether Ocampo. And ABS is so very right in choosing Bea as their next big bet to stardom as she has this luminous quality of a true star, a very likable personality, a winning screen presence, and an amazing ability to act effortlessly that can surely win her dozens of acting trophies when she matures as a thespian.
Bea opens the film with a dance number while singing Sheryl Cruz’ "Mr. Dreamboy" with various goodlooking guys dancing with her, notably, Rafael Rossell. She plays Cyd, and just like Richard Gutierrez in "Let the Love Begin", she is a poor orphan who grew up with her lola (Nova Villa). She now works in a supermarket and constantly reads romance novels while dreaming of having her own boyfriend someday.
She meets the son of the owner of their supermarket, Phillip Ong (Piolo), and he sweeps her off her feet, fetching her in her boarding house with a flashy limousine then taking her to Subic to frolic with the dolphins there. She quickly falls in love with him but Phillip suddenly leaves to go to Singapore.
She then meets Eboy (Piolo, again), a guy who saves her handbag from a snatcher and who looks exactly like Phillip. But whereas Phillip is a refined and reserved executive type, Eboy is a playful athlete and a more spontaneous kind of guy who has no inhibitions about saying what he feels. He takes her on a nature trip and, once again, she falls in love, but finds out he already has a fiancee (Julia Clarete).
Still nursing a wounded heart, she then meets Jaime (Piolo, yes, again!), a training supervisor in a restaurant who looks exactly like Phillip and Eboy. She starts to smell something fishy. At this point, if the viewer is not so dumb, he’d have already detected that there is some ruse in the way Cyd is being made to believe that Phillip, Eboy and Jaime are three different guys. How you’d like the movie depends on how willing you are to suspend disbelief as far at the story’s development is concerned.
The credibility of the narrative hangs on a big plot contrivance that is actually quite difficult to believe. We cannot reveal it to you without being a spoiler, so you have to figure out for yourselves what it’s all about. But as long as you are willing to be taken for a ride, we don’t think you’d have a problem with it.
In our case, we just couldn’t help but think that the plot mechanics raised a number of questions that are left unanswered in a fully satisfying manner. For instance, if Cyd is a character similar to that played by Jim Carrey in "The Truman Show", then how could she have not known much earlier that everything is staged when the show is supposed to be a hit and people should already be recognizing her in public? There, we didn’t want to reveal the said plot, but we can’t help mentioning it to point out the major kink we see in the story.
If you’re a hopeless romantic willing to ignore this, then you’d still find the movie enjoyable. It actually has more lavish production values than "Let the Love Begin", what with its big scenes like the party scene where Bea is snobbed by Piolo’s haughty aunt (Lui Manansala) and the marathon scene with countless extras. But the film’s biggest asset is really Bea Alonzo. The camera just loves her and, properly nurtured, we have no doubt she’d be an even bigger star in the near future.
