A widower in the city
Film review: Ang Tatay Kong Sexy
By coincidence, I saw an old film in Cinema One titled May Isang Puso directed by Joey Javier Reyes.
The story of an adolescent trying to eke out a living and hoping for an opportunity to study isn’t a new subject but the way the director wove the story and how he ended it leaves a certain kind of emotional relief for the viewers. You cheer for the subject and you wrap off your viewing time with a good word for the director who knows how to get something from his subject without being too overly lachrymose about his story.
You get a little pessimistic with films the title of which initially gives an impression of another filmmaking job wrapped up and so — next assignment please.
But direk Joey’s Tatay Kong Sexy manages to give you a delightful surprise from a film he himself has written and directed.
Of course, the title suggests some kind of Clover Theater-type of comedy but it turns out it is devoid of slapsticks and the comic part is provided by the characters who live their lives for what they are.
The character of Maja Salvador as the seasoned “trouble shooter-cum-fixer” and without an iota of basic breeding contributes a lot to this film. At some point, she dominates the film with her spontaneous acting and, indeed, she sustains it up to the end with aplomb and eliciting more admiration for her feisty character.
When she interacts with the character of Jinggoy Estrada as the conservative patriarch, the more her character acquires more patina which is a tribute to her versatile side as ensemble actor.
Direk Joey gives us a tale of the widower who must cope with three grown-up kids and deal with their cyberage lingo and Internet games.
The character of Jinggoy is at once reminiscent of his provincial counterpart who emphasizes the following not exactly in this order: 1. No courtship while completing studies which translates into no boyfriends or no girlfriends; 2. No late-night arrivals and 3. No failing grades. But while he is busy supervising his “talyer” and small-time food franchise business, the only girl in the family (Empress Schuck) gets pregnant to his shock.
How he interacts with a banking family headed by the late Mark Gil and his son portrayed by Dominique Roque provides the film with more comic moments with riotous inputs from the “fixer-cum-hustler” played by Maja.
To one’s relief, Jinggoy plays the part with just the right character coloring without resorting to the banal and the facetious. One could sense that the director advised him to play himself as normal father and nothing added or intentionally diminished.
Under direk Joey, everything about this Father’s Day comedy film is enjoyable. You get to laugh at the right places, the characters are what you will call the typical cyberage kids in the city and you see an almost pathetic patriarch balancing between the demands of fatherhood and new love about
to bloom with an unlikely partner and trying to comprehend his youngest son’s computer games.
The director has an uncanny way of making his movie audiences laugh and at the same time pulling an emotional plug that leaves a certain space in your heart for what is noble and pure about fathering.
The title of the film is a misnomer for there is nothing sexy about any of the characters.
On the other hand, Maja probably deserves the label not only because she has the body for it. But more than this, her character she successfully delineated with pure blood, sweat and tears. Like the new Presidentelect, her character is honest about herself, she doesn’t claim to be educated, she knows nothing about table etiquette but she has a heart that can connect to her neighbors’ basic emotional needs.
On the whole, the film entertains and it offers a lot more. For one, the movie succeeds in defining the heart of a good father in the city while giving his audiences a comic time as the characters bare themselves for what they are.
Ang Tatay Kong Sexy is now showing in theaters nationwide.