This may not be Bea Alonzo‘s first time to assume the character of a mistress, but this time around as a young woman attorney named Adie who found another chance of love in the arms of a neurosurgeon played by Richard Gomez as Vince and is married for 25 years to Tricia portrayed by Dawn Zulueta.
Contrary to the many melodrama films that centered on the struggles of a mistress, this Nuel Naval film struggles in the areas of presenting the characters’ struggle between Vince and Tricia. Despite the fact that the two seasoned actors who have been acclaimed for their previous performances especially during their heydays may have ‘somehow’ failed to deliver what is required of them as acting out their characters. In all fairness to both, they did all their best in order to essay their respective pained and flawed characters.
However, watching them together onscreen again is just enough delight for those who missed their tandem and loopholes in their characters may have been set aside, somehow. Both haven’t lost their ‘chemistry’ on and off screen and they still are lovely to look at, as a loveteam.
Vanessa Valdez, the screenwriter may have mustered all she could in order to differentiate this film that tackles about a mistress-slanted film as opposed to the previous movies that offered the same theme, but somehow fell short. In its storytelling, I was quite disturbed why the repetitive flashbacks where the root of conflict between Vince and Tricia all started. It was about their past mistakes that fueled to enter into another mistake and not by their shortcomings as humans.
Among the three leads, Alonzo is perhaps the most solid. Why so? In her trauma from her own family, where his father Pancho (Al Tantay) had a second wife (Ana Capri) was her life’s issue in getting into a relationship and was even a victim herself when her fiancé breathed by a cameo appearance of Tom Rodriguez, who cheated on her when he had a sexual encounter with a model.
Adie’s two memorable scenes are with her father and the daughter of Vince and Tricia, Cassie (Jane Oineza). Valdez made those two scenes very effective in piercing the hearts of the audience and made them understand fully the third character as someone not to be hated, but to be sympathized with.
Acting-wise, both Dawn and Bea deserves if not awards at least nominations. Even if their confrontation scene weren’t as comparable to the many intense scenes that Vilma Santos have found herself in former Viva movies; still it was handled quite well.
‘The Love Affair’ is perhaps to be dubbed as not the usual mistress-type of flick and is still showing in theaters nationwide.
JudethePublicist 