Disturbingly #MeToo

All the events of this romantic-comedy, which was an entry at the last Metro Manila Film Festival, takes place inside the AG New World Manila Bay Hotel, which is repeatedly announced in the movie.

Anna (Jessy Mendiola), a girl with everlasting makeup and permanently blow-dried hair, wakes up in a luxurious five-star room next to a sleeping, half-naked man.

Anna, in her nude underwear, quickly dons her orange dress and starts to tiptoe her way out of the morning-after of what looked like a drunken one-night stand with a complete stranger. The man suddenly speaks. Anna turns around to see her unplanned lover and is shocked to find Rye del Rosario (Jericho Rosales), the country’s most famous actor. The most coveted bachelor in the Philippines. A royalty in the showbiz kingdom.

So the prince, l mean, the actor, coaxes the “commoner” back to the room for her protection, because zombie-like paparazzi and rabid fans are surrounding the hotel, losing their minds over who the girl in the orange dress is. So how did this non-showbiz girl with Instagram-ready face despite falling into a swimming pool the night before end up in the royalty’s bed? And, she scoffs, saying she’s not even a fan of Rye.

Touching on the Filipino culture of celebrity worship, The Girl in the Orange Dress aims to thrill and force it with kilig elements with a Notting Hill-like premise. The two wake up and there’s instant chemistry between them. And they spend the entire film evading the press and making gooey eye contacts with each other. Rosales, as always, is effortless in his role, but he and Mendiola lack personality; they are cardboard characters of a superstar and a non-superstar.

The film teases us by revealing snippets of the events that led to the hotel room in the form of flashbacks. What is deeply disturbing about the film is how Anna and Rye meet for the first time. The night before Anna encounters Rye, she is deeply wasted, thanks to her BFFs (Ria Atayde, Hannah Ledesma and Sheena Halili) who force her to go beyond her alcohol quota despite Anna explicitly warning them that she easily gets drunk — and when she gets drunk, she literally forgets everything and ends up in crazy places.

Later in the film, Rye admits that he fell for Anna the first time he met her because she didn’t know who he was. Yeah. Because she’s drunk? He’s not a superstar in her eyes, but a mere mortal, and that makes her so attractive to him. What is spectacularly unbelievable to the audience is how Rye never detected that he’s falling in love with someone inebriated; beholden with a woman whose mind is addled with more alcohol than she could take. Or does he know?

So the drunk woman, we learn later on, was the one who initiated the hotel tryst. Mendiola’s Anna, meanwhile, is designed to be a demure drunk, prettily dancing against the backdrop of Manila Bay while Rye watches her with hearts in his eyes. Then she collapses on the grass and lovingly tells Rye that she wants a softer bed and points to the direction of AG New World Hotel. He quickly agrees.

Towards the end of the film, writer and director Jay Abello further teases the audience whether or not Rye and Anna had sex that night, courtesy of a Boy Abunda (as himself) interview. The movie wants us to guess. Considering the film opened with Rye topless in bed next to Anna, and when Abunda directly asking the couple if they did the deed the first night and Anna whispering to Rye, the more we think that they did.

A DRUNK Anna tells Rye she wants a softer bed than the green grass. Instead of the film allowing Rye to simply give a negative response, that no, he will never have sex with a drunk woman, we are instead left to our own imagination. And we are fearful that he might have had sex with her because that is very well called rape. The movie wants us to get giddy pondering whether sexual intercourse happened between a drunk girl and a sober guy.

There are plenty of implausible scenarios, like press people freely circulating within the hotel. But the most implausible is Rye presumably never having a clue that the girl in the orange dress that he met in a bathroom is drunk. No, Anna cannot have high tolerance for alcohol, because, again, the movie clearly establishes that just two shots of vodka make her forget everything.

Also, Anna, before getting drunk, knows who Rye is, because her closest friend, Kakai (Atayde), is mentally deranged over her obsession with Rye. More so, the viral video of the girl in an orange dress is a picture of a woman clearly intoxicated, with a sober Rye keeping her from tumbling down the stairs. If that is not obviously drunk to Rye, then he must be horrifically dense.

The pacing is smooth, the cinematography is competent, and there are a few funny gags, especially from the press people. And the movie adds fun by using the most recognizable faces in showbiz as extras and also incorporating suspense.

But the movie, no matter how it desires to accurately depict the world of celebrities, is not only preposterous in dumbing down the audience by saying that celebrities have feelings, too, that their heart also gets broken (Wow, what a powerful revelation). But, chiefly, the movie is deeply disturbing, especially in the era of the #MeToo Movement; a famous actor taking advantage of a drunk girl. Or maybe not. Up to you to conclude — with some kilig.

Now showing in select cinemas in Metro Manila.