Bridal Shower (2004)

User Rating:

7.0/10   

Director:

Jeffrey Jeturian

Writers:

Chris Martinez (story)
Armando Lao (screenplay)

Genre:

Drama | Comedy | Romance

Plot Keywords:

Annulment | Footsie Under The Table | Friend | Sexy Pinay | Male Dancer

Awards:

5 wins & 9 nominations

Cast

Dina Bonnevie	...	Tates
Cherry Pie Picache	...	Katie
Francine Prieto	...	Sonia
Christian Vasquez	...	Mickey
Douglas Robinson	...	Bryan
J.R. Valentin	...	Juancho (as Juancho Valentino)
Alfred Vargas	...	Joebert
Pinky Marquez	...	Emily
Rodel Velayo	...	Bingo
Gina Pareño	...	Lourdes
Boots Anson-Roa	...	Doña Vergie
Lester Llansang	...	Tonton
Angel Jacob	...	Melissa
Gerald Lauron	...	Melissa's BF (as Gerard Lauron)
Jacob Dionisio	...	Bogie

Country:

Philippines

Language:

Filipino | Tagalog | English

Color:

Color (Fujicolor)

Certification:

Philippines:R-13

Company:

Seiko Films

Trivia:

Producer Robbie Tan yanked out Diana Zubiri from the project saying "I don't think Diana Zubiri can compete with the two (Cherry Pie Picache and Dina Bonnevie) when in comes to acting." However, the producer gave Diana Zubiri the starring role in Liberated (2003) in which which she was supported by Francine Prieto who replaced her in this movie.

Movie Connections:

Featured in 30th Metro Manila Film Festival-Philippines 2004 Awards Night (2004) (TV)

Here comes the groom, all dressed in white

There's a sardonically funny sequence in "Bridal Shower," Jeffrey Jeturian's latest screen opus following "Tuhog" (2001), that is bound to stir raised-brow hysteria. In an almost lomo-esquire blur of a thousand flickering lights, a group of men in friarly robes goes on-stage. From among them steps forward a guy in an archbishop's vest complete with the works. Then as if on cue, each of them disrobes. The audience bursts in excited shrieks and wild cheers. In bulge-busting G-strings, the teasing guys begin to gyrate ever so sensuously along some slow music. They are macho dancers in a gay bar. They call themselves The Monks.

This scene is one of the at-ease attempts of "Bridal Shower," Seiko Films' bet for the 29th MMFF, to poke fun at conventions and come out of it clean in the name of fun.

"Bridal Shower" portrays the romantic, at times outrageously raucous, exploits of three women who seem to be so interested in nothing more than to get attached. Dina Bonnevie plays the used-to-be-oversexed Tates, a young-at-heart whose suicidal tendencies are stirred awake when she breaks off with her youngish beau whose pricey annulment with his wife she took charge of. Francine Prieto plays the sultry Sonia who maintains two sexually intimate affairs – one with a struggling artist and the other with a ridiculously rich mama's boy – and who chooses the latter as husband over the former when tormented with the question of whose sperm could have possibly united with her egg. Cherry Pie Picache plays the self-pitying and obese Katie, who has her eyes fixed on the probable wonders of a fat-sucking operation, until she falls prey to a relationship with a macho dancer. And then of course there's Christian Vazquez whose one-liners as Tates' love-interest aren't as effective as the barks of a terrier at the movie's latter part. There's Alfred Vargas as the gyrating Joebert whose eye-drawing bulge scores more points than either his teeny-bopper grins or attempts to look serious. And there's Rodel Velayo of soft-porn flicks fame as a homo ad agency worker who has the cursed fate of being vomited on by each of the three gals.

As if the flick's utterly cliché-ic premise isn't enough, the ending even makes a complete fool out of the viewers. I never knew till then that foregoing a quarter of a million debt or a 5-6 worth P50,000 could be so easy in exchange of a half-sincere promise of wedding or a minute-or-so dance.

Sheesh, outside the cinema people stab each other with icepicks for goods not even worth beyond a thousand bucks. But alas, Jeturian's feel-good finale for dummies isn't meant to bring out the bitter in us.

Sure, it can make us slap our knees bloody in incessant hearty guffaws, but "Bridal Shower," which purports itself to be a light-hearted satirical comedy, is no more than an escapist and an anticlimactic flick that reeks of stereotypes and characters of extreme nature.