Tujan: A firm commitment to casual intimacy

I HAD the chance to grace the press briefing of Unofficially Yours with lead actors John Lloyd Cruz and Angel Locsin. Both gamely answered questions, including the naughty ones.

I remember one reporter asking John Lloyd what he usually does before he goes to bed.

"You really wanna know?" he replies with a wide grin on his face. Everyone laughed and he replied: "Brush my teeth."

Two days later, I watched Unofficially Yours, a movie that adds nothing new to its well-worn rom-com formula. However, the chemistry between John Lloyd Cruz and Angel Locsin is almost enough to carry the movie by itself.

Unofficially Yours poses the question: Is it possible to regularly have sex with someone and not run a risk of falling in love? The answer is yes.

Now that we have that settled, consider the case of Ces (Angel Locsin) and Macky (John Lloyd Cruz), two busy people who cross paths, when neither is in the right place for a relationship but both could use some hanky-panky.

He's a dentist and she's a reporter for a broadsheet. She doesn't have time for romance, a liberated woman who loves to engage in sex without attachments. In contrast, John Lloyd plays a guy who is looking for a love life that has the stability.

Unofficially Yours is a strained romantic comedy that never escapes the vulgarity and contrivance of its central premise: a couple agrees to become sexual partners on the understanding that love and emotion won't be allowed to interfere.

What I like about the film is that it stayed true to its intentions. Ces and Macky are your modern characters, a relationship with no definition, no label. The movie also contained probably the best balance of comedy, romance, and drama.

The pleasures of Unofficially Yours are to be found in the brisk, easy humor of some of Macky's dialogue and in the talented people scattered around Angel and John Lloyd's characters like fresh herbs strewn on a serving of overcooked fish. Whether it's the sitcom-y feel of Macky's housemates, to poignant and touching moment with Ces and her mother, played by Tetchie Agbayani.

But Unofficially Yours never gets the ball rolling for me. The film concentrated too much on the "unofficial" relationship side of things. An interpretation that more or less just contained countless sexy scenes from the lead actors while only one of those scenes really mattered (one of the funniest bits at that).

If I take the word of director Cathy Garcia-Molina that the film is "mapangahas" to date, I guess because this is the first time, bankable actors play provocative characters that we don't see often in Philippine movies.

Overall I would watch it again, for John Lloyd who played his character very well and for Angel who like always delivers her charm in a way no other can.

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