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One More Chance
Additional Language: English
Year of Release: 2007
Director: Cathy Garcia-Sampana [as Cathy Garcia-Molina]
Screenwriters: Vanessa R. Valdez & Carmi Raymundo
Producer: Star Cinema Productions
Cast: John Lloyd Cruz, Bea Alonzo, Derek Ramsay, Maja Salvador, Dimples Romana, James Blanco, Janus del Prado, Ahron Villena, Beatriz Saw, Nikkie Gil, Nanette Inventor, Al Tantay, Melissa Mendez, Shamaine Buencamino, Bodjie Pascua, Lauren Young
Despite frequent spats and near-breakups, Popoy and Basha have remained a couple for five years. However, when Basha finally had enough of Popoy’s domineering behavior, she ends the relationship. In time, they each find new partners. But as they try to start over, they learn that there is still something that prevents them from completely moving on from the love they once shared.
The Pinoy middle class, after enduring decimation because of the Marcos regime’s failed authoritarian experiment, recently managed to re-emerge in the current globalized era of outsourced labor, foreign direct investment, and intensifying interconnectivity. Among the several attempts to observe and chronicle this crucial paradigmatic shift, One More Chance fares better than its contemporaries, mainly because its mainstream aspirations helped it avoid the judgmental tone that the typical independent project would have succumbed to. The tight circle of yuppified characters at its center may be oblivious to the country’s—and the world’s—developmental issues, but they do manage to justify their insularity by occupying themselves with a contemporary version of courtly love. As it plays out in the film, the process appears modern in so far as the couples no longer worry about premarital relations and the main female character sets the conditions of engagement, but it also retains a nobility in terms of the male lover’s ardency and loyalty. Cathy Garcia-Sampana makes the most of her cast’s grown-up ability to convey emotional states via subtle adjustments in expressions and ironic line readings, with John Lloyd Cruz managing to utter the cheesy-sounding line “She loved me at my worst, you had me at my best” as if the fate of humanity depended on it.
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