Oscar-winning Hollywood diva Faye Dunaway was in her 50s when she wrote her autobiography Looking for Gatsby. In one of the chapters, she lamented the lack of worthwhile movie roles for actresses her age. She mentions the advice Shirley MacLaine had given her: Accept being old and accept grandmother roles, and you’ll have fun. MacLaine by then was having a lark playing grumpy old ladies. Dunaway, however, said it was advice she wasn’t ready to heed just yet.
In Meet, Greet & Bye, it’s obvious that Maricel Soriano is having fun playing older women. Quietly suffering matriarchs, once the domain of Caridad Sanchez, can now be expertly essayed by the star who hit it big with movies like Underage. In Meet, Greet & Bye, Soriano plays a doting grandma as well as stubborn mama to three adult sons. The eldest is played by Piolo Pascual, who’s just a dozen years her junior. True artist that she is, Soriano banishes vanity to the winds and jumps into the mother role with gusto.
The drama begins when it’s learned that the mama’s cancer has recurred. She’s made it known to her family that she’s decided not to do chemo, much to the chagrin of her children. She’s ready to face death, she insists. But her zest for life is revived when it’s announced that her favorite K-pop star is visiting the country. Now is her chance to see him in person in a meet-and-greet occasion at Araneta Coliseum. The children agree to purchase the tickets to the event—provided she agrees to undergo chemotherapy.
Of course, getting tickets is easier said than done. Scammers and long lines have made the mother’s dream impossible to realize. Complicating the situation are the hidden grudges the younger son (Joshua Garcia) has had against brother Piolo. The latter’s daughter (played by Belle Mariano) also felt abandoned when her papa Piolo sought greener pastures in the US.
The plot is so familiar; was it just yesterday when I saw virtually the same movie but with a different cast? Or was that seven Sundays ago? And didn’t I review a movie like this just last week?
Movies about feuding siblings have become a Philippine movie genre. They’re obviously popular with Filipino audiences. In fact, Meet, Greet & Bye is among the most streamed titles on Netflix. Expect to see more movies about quarrelsome families starring the biggest stars in the industry.
This one is strictly Maricel Soriano’s show. She inhabits the role and makes each moment look so authentic. She’s an actress who can say much without delivering lines. Just watch her stare at her youngest son (played well by Juan Karlos Labajo) as he sings to her. With seemingly little effort, she imparts the mother’s love, gratitude, and heartbreak with her nuanced reaction.
The Maricel Soriano of yore also sporadically appears. She uses her babeing bakla shtick to great effect when she’s gushing over her favorite K-pop star. This persona especially comes alive when the sons treat their mother to a trip to the beach. Fans might remember her Regal Baby days when a scene on the beach had the mandatory dance number. They’ll have to do without one in this outing. The star is playing a cancer patient basking in the sun in a wheelchair.
Her co-stars, though very talented, can’t prevent this movie from looking like any other Star Cinema production. The acting, the smooth camera work, and editing are flawless, yet the resulting movie feels generic and artificial. The cheap-sounding electronic keyboard music that underscores certain scenes can be interchanged with the music from previous Star Cinema movies. The acting of the background actors, as always, is terribly fake.
Cathy Molina-Sampana co-wrote and directed this movie, and she’s proven to be a capable storyteller. Yet the wonderful Thai film, How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies, shows how well-meaning movies like Meet, Greet & Bye have a long way to go in terms of writing and overall execution. The tone of Ms. Molina-Sampana’s film is uneven. It shifts from intense drama to slapstick comedy and then back to powerful confrontations. Humor is always welcome in films of this type, but it’s best to use irony, sarcasm, or subtitle punch lines. Most Asian filmmakers have mastered this art.
The screenwriters need to learn to hold back with the words and just let the cameraman and the actor convey the message
In sharp contrast, our own filmmakers tend go overboard when it comes to injecting comedy in a dramatic film. In Meet, Greet & Bye, the unfunny Keystone Cop-type chase between the sons and a scheming ticket peddler makes the conflicts in the story look forced. I recall seeing a movie starring Gerald Anderson and Pia Wurtzbach titled My Perfect You, also produced by Star Cinema. It starts off as an amusing romcom but it turns into a completely different movie in the second half. Suddenly, it’s a psychological drama.
One other symptom that afflicts dramatic films like Meet, Greet & Bye is the prolonged speeches near the end of the film. The screenwriters need to learn to hold back with the words and just let the cameraman and the actor convey the message with their own artistry. We’re confident in the abilities of Joshua Garcia and Piolo Pascual, and we’re sure they can pull it off with less of the dialogue that spells out everything. Maricel Soriano did exactly that when it was her turn to say her piece.
I did like the opening scene, a collage of the important and sometimes distressful moments in the childhood of the three sons. Three sets of child actors of varying ages were used in this sequence. It’s stylishly filmed, yet the concept was disturbingly familiar. Was this already used in a Hollywood film, or even a Disney animated film? If I’m being cynical about this, blame our filmmakers. One previous romcom (also by Star Cinema) shamelessly copied the opening sequence of Love, Actually—complete with voice-over narration. That unoriginal sequence accomplished one thing: It taught me to be wary of anything that might look remotely inventive in our films.
