A Very Special Love

Yup!  You guessed right.  I watched A Very Special Love (this is a movie if you don’t know) a couple of weeks ago.  Actually, I watched it twice.  Yeah I know.. kinda jologs of me but hey … This is a movie for all walks of life.  It stars Sarah Geronimo and John Lloyd Cruz.  First time, I was alone.  Second time, I was with my mother.

Here’s the synopsis:

Laida is a modern-day Belle. She works hard to provide for her family while believing that someday she will meet her prince charming and they will live happily ever after together. That prince charming is none other than Miggy Montenegro, the youngest of the Montenegro clan—a well established family in the business world. Laida dreams of meeting Miggy every day and every night. These dreams lead her to apply as an Editorial Assistant at Miggy’s newly established men’s magazine Bachelor despite it being a long shot, hoping that working in the company will allow her to be close to the man who invades her dreams every night.
By some sort of luck, Laida lands the job. Overwhelmed by the being in the presence of her crush, and by her instant employment, Laida remains blind to the fact that the Miggy she dreams of is very different from the real one. Miggy in person is a hothead who thinks he’s always right. The word “sorry” doesn’t mean anything to him. Everyone is scared of him, except Laida, who is always ready to defend her dream man. Blindly she caters to his whim, even when he sent her to be his proxy on his date with his girlfriend, breaking her heart a little. Her co-workers question her unrelenting dedication to such a monster but when Laida proves quite loyal to the man, gossip about Laida’s feelings for their boss starts to circulate. Laida, to defend herself, unwittingly reveals information about Miggy’s personal life which earns her his ire. Being shouted at for the first time by the man she dreams of opens Laida’s eyes to reality. And her awakening in turn leads to Miggy’s rude awakening of why people do not like him.

No one has ever talked back to Miggy before. No one dared tell him their opinions and or suggestions. Miggy was always right and that’s how he likes it. But when Laida, a simpleton who just follows his every command tells him to his face that he is wrong, Miggy begins to wonder if the reason for his failures could actually be him. For the first time Miggy apologizes. And this opens the door to a whole new world of a lot of “firsts” for Miggy. With the help of Laida, Miggy slowly learns to be a teamplayer. With the help of Laida, Miggy slowly learns the value of loyalty.

But Miggy’s conflict with his siblings keeps pulling Miggy back to his old ways, and not even Laida’s presence in his life can clear the shadow casted on him by his family. Laida does everything she knows just to help Miggy at the expense of time with her family. As Laida and Miggy’s fight to save the magazine become more intense, so is their fight to keep their intentions and emotions at bay. Will Laida and Miggy ever figure out the right combination to solve their problems in business and in their personal lives? Or will their mismatching personalities, despite their common interest and goal keep them from ever figuring out their perfect pair?

—–from http://averyspeciallove.yehey.com/story.htm

I really don’t watch Filipino movies on the big screen as a rule, my rule.  People say it is a formulaic movie.  Yes, it is.  But I love it still.   Why?  Because it was romantic, funny, the dramatic scenes are just right, the lead stars are excellent, the supporting casts are very good.  It leaves you with a light feeling plus you have LSS (last song syndrome) and you have at least one favorite line.  My only pet peeves are Sarah’s wig, the rain effect, and the movie should have been longer.   Sarah was a revelation.  She CAN act.  It even looked like she was not acting because she was so natural in it.  Well, she had training with soap dramas anyway.  John Lloyd as always delivers, enough said.  The supporting casts have their own highlights in the movie.  The director, Cathy Garcia Molina, did it again.  She is probably one of the masters in this genre, funny romantic movies, or rom-com as they coined (romantic comedy).   This is presumably a low-budget movie for Star Cinema.  There are no out-of-the-country locations like in previous movies, only out-of-town LOL!  The fact that they used Luneta, considered the most jologs location, to shoot some scenes and made it work with the sappy singing and rain effect (that missed in one short scene) is commendable.  It still worked for me and for the other people in the movie house as evidenced by the crowd’s enthusiastic response.

I got to say, I have never experienced watching a movie like this, ever.  Well, except for Schindler’s List and that’s a serious movie so the ‘appreciation’ was only heard after the movie.  The first time I watched this movie, I was kind of debating inside whether I should watch this or not or just watch another movie.  I have just watched Batman so I decided to pick this.  While buying the ticket, I was literally looking at the back then sideways, to see if someone I know could see me. LOL!  It’s like a covert operation.  So secretive.  Hahaha.  Inside the cinema, I noticed it was half-full considering it’s a week day, meaning work day and school day and it was lunch time.

Before the start of the movie, there were movie trailers shown as was customary.  The For The First Time movie trailer was shown.  I guess no one expected it cause there was no reaction.  Not a sound.  For me, it was like “Uh okay, whatever.”  I got to say Santorini, Greece is beautiful.  I just put it in my list of places I dream to go.  The movie itself, however, failed to attract me to watch it.  Presumably it’s a love story.  Boy meets girl or vice versa just like in AVSL.  Only this one, it did not intrigue me.  Miggy’s personality is very intriguing to say the least.  I wanted to see whether Laida’s bubbliness and positive outlook would last in the presence of Mr. Gloomy Guy.  In FTFT, I expect the lead characters will fall in love eventually.  Obviously, there is a conflict based on the crying/argument scene.  It’s just that I didn’t buy it.  Both of them are beutiful physically.  The location is breath taking.  The story is so-so.  Much more typical than AVSL.

Although AVSL is a typical boy-meets-girl or girl-meets-boy story, it does not center solely on this.  The movie devoted a good part of it on family matters.  As I have said before, there are lots of funny scenes.  I simply love the crowd (the people watching the movie).  We were all in synch. LOL!  Giggling, smiling, laughing, crying at the same time, etc.  They laughed out loud, no holds barred.  I was amazed!  People are clearly enjoying the movie so much that sometimes I coudn’t hear the lines being delivered because of the noise.  Some of it I only understood on my second time watching it. Hahaha!  It was funny because I could also hear lots of people crying left and right.

Overall, I rate this movie 4.5 out of 5 because of the minor flaws.  This movie just made it to my all time favorite romantic movies list along with Got 2 Believe and others that are too many to mention.

PS:  Did I mention that they kissed only once and it was not even a proper kiss, just a smack on the lips.  And people is still raving about it that it was sooooooooooooooo romantic and soooooooooooo kilig! Winner!