Vince and Kath and James is Star Cinema's official entry to the 2016 Metro Manila Film Festival which stars Julia Barretto, Joshua Garcia and Ronnie Alonte. The movie is based on an online romantic series by author Jenny Almocera which consists of screenshots of SMS and chat conversations between Vince and Kath that has gone viral and it's possible that you might've liked or shared it on your social media platforms. This caught ABS's attention which turned it into a book and eventually the movie version. And if things still go according to plan, a spin-off is in the works featuring the character James in James and Pat and Dave. Not bad for something that presumably started as a side project within the comfort of the author's home.
The story is about Boy 1 who is good in articulating his feelings online but is unable to profess them in real life while Boy 2 is the opposite, full of confidence but lacks finesse in the matters of the heart. Problem is they're after the same girl so one helps out the other but things get complicated when the girl falls for both. Standard stuff. If I remember it correctly, the online version didn't include a second guy and maybe it was added on eventually in the book or the movie. That is if I was looking at the right online version - perhaps it was just a copy of a copy of a copy and so on and so forth.
Now let's talk about the players. Julia Barretto is beautiful, whether you like her or not. There were shades of her aunt Claudine Barretto, and it was cute shoutout that her character loved the movie Got 2 Believe which starred Claudine and Rico Yan. Actingwise, her main problem is she's conscious in front of the camera: "Do I look pretty enough? Am I saying it right? Did I get my angle?" She can improve and based on a little of what I've seen on her latest tv show she has, but there are still room for improvements. Ronnie Alonte showed his potential when he starred in another MMFF entry in the same year, the horror movie Seklusyon. Add to that versatility now that he's shown he's capable in the romantic comedy genre. Lastly, there's Joshua Garcia. This was his breakout movie, he was the first guy paired with Julia that became a success and as has been pointed many times before, the guy can act. Though right now he seems like a carbon copy of John Lloyd Cruz, hopefully he develops his own acting style and then we can see what he is really made of.
