Tanginamo Bitch, Mang-aagaw Ka by Don Jaucian No...

Tanginamo Bitch, Mang-aagaw Ka
by Don Jaucian

No Other Woman (2011)
D: Ruel Bayani
C: Anne Curtis, Derek Ramsey, Christine Reyes, Carmi Martin

The bitches in Gagong Rapper nailed this shit good. Fighting over a guy, especially if the ladies involved are sassier than a luxe hair styling ad, it might as well be the punchline of a dirty sexist joke (but aren’t all sexist jokes dirty?). We never get to hear who the ladies behind Gagong Rapper’s “Sulutera” are, so we’ll just assume they are some kind of hormonal groupies who are in it for the thrill of a “thugLyf”. They lash at each other without total regard whether they look like brute lionesses fighting over a carcass at the African savannas, or just two Tondo ladies eyeing the last piece of a well-crafted fake Louis Vuitton bag in Divisoria.

But heck, listening to these two girls go at it is like watching torture porn: you know it’s excruciating to look at but you still keep your eyes peeled open, waiting for someone’s bones to pop or a throat to be ripped open. Watching Cristine Reyes and Anne Curtis in No Other Woman skirts this same kind of experience. You cringe, you laugh at how hilariously trashy the film’s production values are or how it has a total disregard for character development. At some point it works, but most of the time you just enjoy the fact that what’s unfolding before your eyes has got people debating whether the film has camp sensibilities or if it’s just plain awful.

The film’s web trailer has made it clear: this is a film propelled by some of the sharpest telenovela-worthy lines ever uttered on Philippine cinema. Carmi Martin’s cudgels of bitching wisdom recall the might of Cherry Pie Picache’s Isadora in Iisa Pa Lamang. But Isadora’s lines are driven by pure evil whereas Carmi Martin’s are just attempts at creating waves for a film that teeters to the brink of cinematic crapdom. But never mind, as their PR machine has us believing, people actually bought the shit that came out of Carmi Martin’s social-climbing mouth. Hand her those gold shoes, will you?

With all the action (mostly done by Reyes and Curtis) on-screen, you have to sit back and ask, why are they fighting over a slab of meat like Derek Ramsey. Sure, Ram (Ramsey) is friggin hot. But that’s the only noteworthy thing in his empty persona. The film attempts to build him, as well as Curtis and Reyes’s characters, some semblance of a background by inserting a bit about daddy issues but these are abandoned altogether once the hysterics come crashing in. He charms customers into buying his weak but gorgeous looking furniture (HA!) so there goes his drool worthy reputation as a macho alpha male.

Alex Pettyfer, now this is some prime slab of meat that’s worthy of fighting over. At least he’s talented.

Perhaps the conflict of the film is supposed to be a moral lesson on the high stakes of cheating, especially in these high-speed times where our spouses can convince our mistresses into thinking we’re the ones on the line. Or perhaps, Kara (Curtis) is demonized as a woman who has it all but still begs for love like a street kid in EDSA. At least Curtis looks the part and she’s the only one shining in this wreck of a film which actually looks more like a real estate or a bag commercial (notice the numerous close-ups on those Prada bags). No Other Woman cements the fact that Curtis is a Pinoy pop-cultural juggernaut. She may not have the man she loves but she can still sashay away in New York, living like a goddess as opposed to dopey-looking Charmaine’s (Reyes) housewife role. Even gay men go straight for her. Or they probably want to be her.

No Other Woman is a wayward sheep that tries to don a Hermes scarf in the midst of Star Cinema’s 2011 failures. Bekimon’s No Other Beki may even be funnier than the movie itself but in the end, you can’t help thinking that head bitches in charge like Blair Waldorf are silently approving of Kara and Charmaine’s scheming and bitching. Kara might even run into her in an Upper East Side soiree, granted that Kara’s worthy of an invitation.