By then, the four stars have already changed into formal gowns for the premiere. Sen. Chiz Escudero came to join Heart while KC Montero came for Rhian. Solenn’s Argentinian BF has already left for South America and she’ll follow him the day after Christmas.
We tell Bianca, who just broke up with Dennis Trillo, that she doesn’t look broken hearted at all. “She was never broken hearted,” Heart tells us.
Heart’s friend, Sen. Miriam Santiago, also came, along with Sen. Gringo Honasan, to support the film. And they were not disappointed as “Sosy Problems” turned out to be very entertaining.
It’s the kind of comedy of manners that is difficult to do as you can easily fall flat on your face with jokes that don’t work. The late Director Ishmael Bernal is good at this (“Salawahan”, “Working Girls”) and we’re happy to report that Andoy Ranay succeeded in coming up with something that is truly hilarious for his first full length film.
The story is about four friends in the upper class who are all unintentionally funny in their unabashed superficiality. Rhian’s character is patterned after Paris Hilton. She’s super rich, bossy, annoying but finds redemption when sent by her dad on a vacation in the province of her lola (Nova Villa).
Heart, the beauty queen’s daughter, is the most “maarte” and is in a friendly rivalry with Solenn, the son of a former French ambassador. The poorest among them is Bianca, the daughter of a congressman (Ricky Davao) who gets arrested for corruption. It’s only Bianca who has a leading man, Mikael Daez, a guy she tries to avoid in favor of the very rich Alden Richards, but it turns out Mikael is even richer, belonging to the Elizalde clan.
You can’t help but laugh at all the “kababawan” of the main characters, but they eventually redeem themselves when they help save the old Polo Club of their youth from being demolished to give way to a mall as envisioned by the very crass Mylene Dizon, a former cashier turned noveau riche.
The acting is uniformly good. We love all the four girls here. They’re all luminously good looking and very talented. Rhian is particularly fine as the rich spoiled brat who comes to appointments riding on a chopper. She really has the aura and star quality of a true artista and also acts well so we surely hope she can recover from the sad debacle that stalled her career. She certainly deserves a second chance.
A scene stealer in the movie is Mylene Dizon as the crass palengkera dressed in outlandishly garish costumes. She deserves a supporting actress nomination no less for pulling off the essentially caricaturish role.
