Reader's Review: A Second Chance

A Second Chance (Star Cinema, 2015) : Starring Bea Alonzo, John Lloyd Cruz, Dimples Romana

Directed by: Cathy Garcia-Molina; Written by Carmi Raymundo and Vanessa Valdez

Lovelier The Second Time Around but Falling Short of Greatness

by. Atty. Ferdinand Topacio

Had Aguinaldo crossed his troops over to Manila after the Spanish Armada's defeat in the hands of Dewey, but before the Americans landed ground troops in Intramuros, our country's history would have been radically different.

How is that historical "what if" relevant to the One More Chance redux called A Second Chance, you ask. Well, just like Aguinaldo, director Cathy Garcia-Molina had the opportunity to transcend the boundary between "good" and "great" but refused to cross the line; and in film-making, as in love and war, he who hesitates is lost.

Do not get me wrong: A Second Chance is a cut above the rest, intelligent yet entertaining, and everything is above par: direction, editing and writing. The acting part is a given, with two of today's best in the field -- John Lloyd Cruz and Bea Alonzo -- playing the leads. In fact, as a sequel to "One More Chance," it is in all respects a better film: aside from the benefit of a full back story for the protagonists, JLC and Bea have also themselves matured as thespians, and were able to fully utilize the now-complex dimensionality of the characters they portray.

Which is just as well, because it being more of a character study, the story is not at all intricate: it starts where the first movie left off, but in medias res (just like the first). Popoy and Basha have married and -- in a series of flashbacks-- we are shown the ceremonies, a typical aspirational bourgeois wedding. The first few years show no portends of the storms to come: after Popoy refuses an overseas job offer to be with his new bride, the newlyweds found an engineering and architectural firm (Gonzalez+Gonzalez) and with husband-and-wife working in tandem, it grows by leaps and bounds. Until tragedy strikes one after the other: a construction site accident (through no fault of Popoy) damages the firm's reputation, Basha suffers a miscarriage and has to stop working, and the firm starts piling up huge losses. Which Popoy keeps from his wife. This however, does not augur well for the union, as Popoy -- driven more and more to drink -- takes out his frustrations on Basha, who is increasingly becoming bored by her imposed domesticity. Eventually, Basha finds out about the horrendous debt and feels betrayed. She contemplates leaving her husband, but her love for him prevails and she returns -- not only to his life but to their firm -- and practically takes over its helm from him. Quiet abruptly, roles are reversed, as Basha starts running the show and Popoy is relegated to second fiddle. This he resents, and after meeting an old flame (well-played by Arci Munoz) who has grown prosperous after taking over the job abroad that Popoy refused, starts thinking whether marrying Basha and staying in the country was "his biggest mistake." Although resisting his ex's sexual advances, Popoy accepts an offer to work in London with her – if only to uplift his self-worth, it would seem -- and tells Basha about his plans to leave. Basha is disconsolate and realizes that that is not, after all, what she wants. Thus, the main conflict arises: will Popoy leave or won’t he? This is quickly resolved – and very quickly at that -- in typical Pinoy fashion with Popoy changing his mind en route to the airport and making a surprise appearance at the wedding rehearsal of one of their mutual friends. It is in that wise that the sequel happily concludes.

The movie departs from the norm with its mostly successful attempts at realism, gamely exploring its theme that the majority of marriages may break apart not because of extraneous causes like a third party, but due to internal strife such as financial difficulties and collision of egos. And indeed, in the middle class diegesic inhabited by the movie’s protagonists, the search for professional and pecuniary success, as well as the “holy grail” that is The Dream House, powers most of their motivations. It is in this unconventional approach to marital strife – a stubborn resistance to succumb to histrionics both in storyline and acting -- where the work shines.

It is also therein that the film stops short of being a great movie. The storyline failed to abandon the clichés that weigh down most local movies, including the “barkada” subplots, the obligatory comedy relief character and the hurried Third Act resolution. There is also the seeming “mandate” to write the dialogue to provide quotable quotes for the audience, which makes for some very hackneyed, unnatural lines; a married couple quarreling in the heat of anger do not talk like poets. The filmmakers should have taken a leaf from Broken Marriage (Ishmael Bernal, starring Vilma Santos and Christopher de Leon [1983]), where the leads were directed to improvise their lines whilst in the scenes where husband and wife would be fighting. And while we understand that this is a sequel, the writer making allusions to most every major scene in the first work is literary baggage that should have been jettisoned.

On the whole, while a fine sequel and an excellent movie in and of itself, it held back from a full-scale departure from conventional Filipino film-making and failed to break new ground (or even just expand on previous formulae), in the end sacrificinggravitas. It fell short of greatness, squandering the opportunity to be this generation’sBroken Marriage (which, with its companion piece Relasyon by the same director being two of the best local films on marital relations).

The local movie-going public has already demonstrated that it can appreciate love stories with atypical “unhappy” endings: The Mistress and Starting Over Again are two cases in point, blockbusters notwithstanding that the protagonists did not live happily ever after. A Second Chance had the, well, chance to push the boundaries even further. Yet it did not take the road less travelled. Sayang. To paraphrase the words of Marlon Brando’s character in On The Waterfront, it could have been a contender.

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