In Review: No Other Woman

No Other Woman, Ruel S. Bayani, 2011

The Gist

An eat your heart out bitch-out fest powered by great performances from Anne Curtis, Cristine Reyes, and Carmi Martin, No Other Woman is a brave take on the subject of infidelity; All at once witty, comic, and powerful, it begs to have the audience asking why it ended with a fizzle instead of a bang that it deserved.

The Good

• great acting and chemistry between the characters
• the script is brilliant, most likely to spawn facebook and twitter status
• a heavy drama that does not go dragging until the end
• set design and costume is proper

The Bad

• very traditional Filipino and dragging ending

Synopsis

Ram Escaler (Ramsey) is a married furniture dealer not above using his good looks and charm to sell expensive furniture to a mostly female clientele. A faithful husband, Ram has since foregone his promiscuous ways and has been faithful to his wife, Charmaine (Cristine Reyes). Luck smiled at his fortune when a client came to his shop to add him to the shortlist of bidders for supplying furniture to a luxury beach resort. Along the way, Ram meets with the Zalderiaga heiress, Kara (Anne Curtis), who helped him secure the deal all the while seducing her way to his heart.

Primetime

In a nutshell, No Other Woman is very soap operatic. In case you've seen those soap operas from the 90s where they fire one verbal missile after another, it's gonna feel like that, though to a good effect. It's a bitchfest where the words have fangs and nails that sink to the skin; and given you are in a safe distance, it is very fun to watch. Kudos to the wonderful dialogues and perfect delivery. The execution of each wonderfully written line gives meat to the whole worn-out skeletal plot of infidelity, and sometimes provides a good comic relief, too.

Not with a Bang, but with a Fizzle

I have bemoaned the way the movie ended long before I even started typing words into this review, so I might as well get this out of the way as soon as possible. The ending is just bad. This is why: the start of the movie is mellow, progressing slowly to a bang, then another bang, then another bang, then the director decides he had enough and ends it with a slow and dragging fizzle that wants to discredit the prior scenes. There was no heavy consequences to face for the characters to end. It felt kind of too redemptive, kind of formulaic and feel-good, felt like a foreign body to a good film. They could've simply ended it at the confrontation scene and made a short scene that discusses the consequences each character now face, but no, the director decided to expand it some more which made for a dragging ending. For me it ended on the last confrontation scene between Charmaine and Kara. That scene is such a climax, everything else after it grew bland.

Anyway, that was how much I despise the ending. Everything else is perfetto. Anne Curtis gave the performance of her life in this one, playing an heiress hell-bound on getting what she wants and ending up a lovely trainwreck. Cristine Reyes who plays a demure housewife also did very well with this one, though not as fine and experienced as Anne. Carmi Martin's portrayal as Cristine's nouveau rich mother delivers one of the most memorable lines in the movie: "I-packup mo na yang Lucy Torres mo, ilabas mo ang Gretchen Barretto mo; ako na'ng bahala sa red stilettos mo." The moviehouse went howling at that. Derek Ramsey didn't do half-bad either, but the women owned this one. Completely.

I would also like to commend the costume design, even if just for Anne Curtis' wardrobe. She did feel like a New Yorker, though with the kind of climate we have here, and yes at the beach, too, it's kind of odd to actually be wearing those. The wardrobe made her look more assertive and bitchy and Westernized, just the kind of girl who'd play mistress and deny that fact to herself.

As I've also noted earlier, the script! Such a thing to be a classic soon. The lines are bound to make it to facebook and twitter shamelessly. The delivery also meant those lines weren't wasted and such a chemistry  hero-villain was made apparent thanks to those lines.

So did it feel like a two-hour seater? Not really. Save for the ending which felt dragging (whose only redemption were Kara's hospital scenes where she is shown completely debased and powerless). As usual with Star-VIVA films, they are edgy but still has that tiny little error which is brought about by Star Cinema's need to be formulaic, commercial, and family-values concerned. The good thing about it is that 3/4 of the movie is so good, you wouldn't mind the dragging ending. It could've been better, then again, it could've been worse. So now, I need to write down my rating.

My verdict:

A passing and recommended mark of 4/5.

In case I haven't spoiled everything for you, here is the trailer for No Other Woman.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WF-PUiKSn54