C1 Originals Reviews: ‘Yours Truly, Shirley’ and ‘O’

In the feel-good comedy Yours Truly, Shirley, Regine Velasquez-Alcasid plays the titular Shirley, a 50-year-old widow still grieving the death of her husband Ronaldo (Romnick Sarmenta). When she discovers local pop star, and massive heartthrob, Jhameson Khervyn (Rayt Carreon), Shirley grows quite certain that he is the reincarnation of her dead husband.

The first act triggers several bursts of laughter, thanks to Shirley’s amusing friends, Menggay and Carmi. The trio complements each other and their dynamic is humorous, even if their conversations are nothing new; sidekick friends egging the lonely central character to move on, get a life, or hook up with a man.

After the entertaining and funny first act, and as soon as Shirley becomes obsessed with Jhameson, the film fizzles. The Jhameson character is slapstick-funny in a cocky kind of way; a parody of a self-obsessed celebrity.

Eventually, the film gradually becomes sitcom-level quality that promotes ABS-CBN’s pool of talents. Your interest slowly wanes as the narrative becomes mediocre, shifting to Shirley’s dull infatuation with a superstar that is one-dimensional.

Written and directed by Nigel Santos, the film’s strongest suit — the BFFs and Dennis Padilla as Shirley’s amorous suitor — are not utilized to their fullest comedic potential. And while the film is chiefly focused on a woman desperately seeking closure from her sudden loss, there is no emotional connection as you know nothing about her husband. Like Jhameson, Ronaldo, who appears in Shirley’s most miserable semi-conscious moments, is merely a poster boy. Even their daughter, Katrina, is an unnecessary presence.

Velasquez-Alcasid, refreshingly with little makeup, delivers a delightful, naturalistic performance. Your typical pleasant “tita,” she is a joy to watch — her effortless and charming portrayal of a semi-delusional woman ferries you until the end. But with a lack of development in her character, you feel detached to her pain and sad attempts at reclaiming her happy days as Ronaldo’s wife.

Yours Truly, Shirley is not a bad film per se; its the flimsy and unoriginal treatment that makes it merely a run-of-the-mill experience. This is the kind of light, easy distraction suited for playing in the waiting area at a doctor’s clinic to entertain patients, mostly the elderly ones.

R-18 supernatural dark comedy O is unexpectedly dull and highly irritating. As hard as it tries to be bold and unconventional, the result is quite the opposite. This is due to a severely contrived and kitschy script weighed down by a crude and forced phantasmagoric style.

Directed by Kevin Dayrit, O takes us to the dizzying and trippy journey of a med student, Maria (Anna Luna), a necrophiliac working as an intern in a morgue. After a disgusting and embarrassing incident, she soon finds herself as a reluctant slave to a vampire “drug lord,” Matilda (Sarah Carlos).

The young and bossy Matilda, with her ever-changing text T-shirts, heads a vampiric family business that runs a black-market blood bank catered to local and fangless vampires. Maria, trapped in the illegal blood-peddling, works hard in exchange of preserving her life.

Things become extra complicated when Maria falls in love with Matilda’s pretty and soft-spoken wheelchair-bound, half-vampire, half-Japanese half-sister, Midori (Jasmine Curtis-Smith). Lesbian romance permeates the air as Maria gets entangled in the bloody illegal trade — until she finally creates an intoxicating recreational drug, which skyrockets their sales. And all of this is narrated to Maria’s BFF (Lauren Young), in flashbacks.

The film is mostly cloaked in darkness, with Maria’s menacing grin and crazy eyes always standing out. There’s a smattering of texts all over the place, including in between split-second transitions. It’s truly a visual eyesore and very much rough around the edges — including some audio problems. It also doesn’t help that Luna’s character is cartoonish, a caricature of an uncontrollable hyper-demon, which makes her exhausting to watch.

REGINE Velasquez makes her big screen comeback with “Yours Truly, Shirley.” (Above) Kevin Dayrit showcases his take on vampirism and necrophilia in the supernatural dark comedy “O.”

The premise is promising, but the lack of wit, combined with its pretentiously artsy-fartsy treatment, makes O incredibly cumbersome. It’s too self-aware, fueled by an intense motivation to throw elements of shock value and political commentary, the outcome of which is one tiresome, trying-hard-to-be-cool film. An acid-tripping, unfunny black comedy crammed with gratuitous sex and nudity, substance abuse, and infused with conyo talk. It’s an endurance test.

Yours Truly, Shirley and O are showing in select cinemas until 17 November as part of the main competition section of the Cinema One Originals Film Festival.