Panic Mode

I feel like I am.. Choking!!!

Reality is like this, it is either you laugh because you can relate to it or extremely dislike the entire aesthetics of the movie. Status: Single stars none other than the sonsie Rufa Mae Quinto as the thirty-year-old virgin. It gives Quinto a new comic outfit that could defy her trademark style.

The believability of the story does not worry me as I have seen worse situations in real life. Status: Single is a romcom film written and directed by Jose Javier Reyes. The film’s dexterity makes it way to make you laugh for its hyper-realistic circumstances. It is about the life of the vivacious Doris, an ordinary working class girl. One by one, her friends started to get married until she reaches thirty and gets deadlocked on her supposedly abnormal situation. Although she is contented, she has a steady boyfriend for two years, she gets to be pressured by her friends and family into marrying. One day, her boyfriend makes a disclosure to end their relationship. She gets a hold of her reaction for a moment until she gets hysterical.

It is a wise decision for Reyes to make use of comedy in bringing about the dilemma of modern women without being too cumbersome. Comedy is a great proposition to alleviate the stiffness of certain topics. It is safer and it is almost a passage or even the starting point before we delve into deeper implications regarding a woman that is towards infecundity. In modern times, women nearing their late 20’s are prone to delicate pregnancies.

Anyway, these juicy topics are handled with such ease without sounding too artificial in its rendering. An ordinary moviegoer might just laugh without much thought given to it. Although it is marketed as a romantic comedy, there is a familiar blend of the genre we call comedy of humours. The supporting casts in this film gives us a unique overview of characters that has an overriding trait of absurdity in their personalities and conduct. As for the women in the film, it gives us a brief outlook on how each handles love and relationships in their lives. The liberation is a great factor in providing what is best to be done in single-hood catastrophes. Poor Doris, if she only knew what to do. But that is a fact of life. At some point of her hysteria, she becomes fatuous, but there is a rebound from her grubby state.

We can gain knowledge from Doris plight. Even the love she tries to achieve might have led to hollowness but the film has been very blatant about being true to oneself. She is not deaf. Her hunky gay friend has been indiscreet about it. But one thing is for sure, watching this film is not entirely a waste. There are deeper meanings to it. The satiric flavor to it and its realistic undertones gives us an idea that this could be further tackled in future comedies and even in dramas. Interweaving love within the movie is just ample for kilig intentions. There is crisp sound to this film.
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I am beautiful

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Truth is more painful than death. It would be easy to accept death than leave your loved ones until the time has arrived. It is sometimes unfair that even the person who will depart will prolong the agony for the people who truly love them by not telling the truth. But then, if we think further, is it because they are too strong to endure the pain? Is it pride until the end that would matter? We are all equal no matter what condition we have. The truth is the only thing that could heal even the most unyielding soul.

Joyce (Mylene Dizon) is a career-obsessed single woman. Suddenly, she resigns to her work at the brink of her achievements because she acquired the terminal disease, pancreatic cancer. She is given three months to live. She grabs her post-it and jots down the things-to-do in the remaining months of her life. She seems extremely good at this and is terribly organized. Until each of her loved one knows her true condition.

Martinez’ has crafted the movie itself like a cancer patient. It has the ability to be fragile and rough with its composition. It could be also true that a device commonly done by most filmmakers to handle the theme of death has been deliberated. Fusing it with humor is not so unusual to us critics. But 100 has been clever considering the fact that it’s brought upon by natural comedians of our country. Eugene Domingo and Tessie Tomas have the ability to make a discourse with the tragedy bestowed to the protagonist. I will never doubt the story’s ability to bind comedy in dealing with this illness. It is bravery on the director’s part to have the assurance that it will likely be of valuable usage to an engaging and insightful story of a woman stricken by cancer.

Independent films have the tendency to experiment with its camera works and cinematography. I have no qualms with the sentimentality generated from some scenes even if it could have been more restrained. Although the Hong Kong sequence could have been a bit off. The home video effect might be misguided as a personal travelogue by the two actresses having a vacation. It’s good that in the end of the Hong Kong segment, Joyce is back again to her condition. The overall technical quality of the film is definitely superior. It gives elegance to the connotation that ‘indie’ film works have this dark and muddy tendency in its film format. It has maximized the medium could offer, mostly with the strengths of the intangibles like the storytelling approach and genre style.

The theme death is a universal language that we could relate to. Its either you are the one dying or the one being left behind. In Joyce’s life, her friends embody who we are. Ruby (Eugene Domingo) is Joyce’s childhood friend. She is the first to know of Joyce’s condition. She effortlessly continues to take the journey with her friend despite being perturbed by the news she has known. Eloisa (Tessie Tomas) is Joyce’s mother. She did not know the condition until the time when Joyce has to be rushed to the hospital. The mother instinct in her strikes without any trace of despair.

Until the very end, we could not get what we desire. Joyce has been very successful in her line of work. She gets the empathy of her friend who stayed despite the awful times of her life. But Joyce has an unrequited love. Death brings family and friends closer together. Despite the tragic occurrence, we still have the ability to laugh. It might help to ease the pain. After all, laughter is as natural as death.

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Charlie Koon's Rating: