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Sometime in the 90s Ernie and Bert were at Republic of Malate when they remembered the movie that starred the restaurant’s proprietor, Kuh Ledesma. It was called Tinimbang Ang Langit (The Sky Was Weighed), one of the less voluminous titles in the oeuvre of Danny Zialcita [Nagalit Ang Buwan Sa Haba Ng Gabi (The Moon Was Incensed At The Length Of The Night), Gaano Kadalas Ang Minsan (How Often Is Sometimes), etc]. In the movie Kuh Ledesma plays a singer and Christopher de Leon a composer, and they perform songs written by Butch Monserrat.

As my friends will burst into song in public places, they launched into a duet of “Try A Little Suicide”. (Of course Ernie sang second voice. Ernie will sing the second voice to anything. He can do “Out Here On My Own” from the movie Fame without hitting any of the notes. Intentionally.)

“Won’t you try a lit-tle su-i-cide/Su-i-cide/Su-i-cide.” They were really getting into the performance when they noticed someone watching them from another table. It was Kuh Ledesma. She did not look amused. They lowered the volume on the singing and faded out altogether.

I’d never seen Tinimbang Ang Langit, but I remember the Suicide song, which got some radio airplay. My classmates went to see the movie and they liked it, although the reviews were terrible and the movie sank like a stone. Last week I borrowed the dvd from Lilit—he found it in a bargain bin in O or somewhere—and watched it between deadlines.

It’s not a Danny Zialcita movie unless Suzanne Gonzales is in it as the fearless, funny, fast-talking best friend/confidante. Here she plays Elaine, the talent manager who discovers Victoria (Kuh Ledesma) singing in an Italian restaurant. She introduces the struggling singer to Joel, a composer in search of a muse. Joel is played by Christopher de Leon at the peak of his hotness, or as The Count likes to say, Kasagsagan (from kasagsagan ng bagyo—the height of the storm). Look at this cheeky split-screen.

Come to think of it, the stars of this movie are all at their kasagsagan. Kuh Ledesma is beautiful and has a great voice, but you can see why her acting career never took off (despite roles in Oro, Plata, Mata and The Year of Living Dangerously).

Joel falls in love with Victoria, and I think she’s supposed to be in love with him too—it’s hard to tell because she has the emotional range of a block of wood. (Wood carvers, hold your protests.) She delivers her lines as if she were reading from a fast-food menu. Joel takes her to the country for batting practice and riding, because that’s what rich people do in Danny Zialcita movies. Their courtship unfolds in a series of what we now call music videos.

The movie comes to life with the arrival of Sandra (Rio Locsin), the owner of a recording studio. She falls madly in love with Joel, who is either a masochist or an aspiring couturier (Her breasts are too large, the curves will ruin the line of his clothes) because he resists her. Sandra pursues him openly, engaging in behavior that would be called stalking (such as stealing his house keys and having them duplicated) if she weren’t so cute and funny. She turns up at his house in the morning while he’s still in bed and brings him breakfast, and here my friends chorus, Wala pa ring nangyari.

The explanation must be that he’s too much in love with the singer to notice anyone else. We would accept this explanation if the object of his affections didn’t remind us of a coffee table (only less expressive). Soon we learn the reason for Sandra’s haste: she’s dying of an unnamed illness. The dying heiress, the young man in love with an ambitious woman—it’s The Wings of the Dove by Henry James!

Victoria sees Sandra and has a fit of jealousy, or maybe she just had some bad shrimp for lunch, it’s hard to tell. Joel takes off to a beach resort to write songs, and he’s so distraught he walks around in shiny gold hot pants.

Joel and Victoria make up, and he composes Try A Little Suicide, which is not the piece you want your boyfriend to write after you’ve just gotten back together. We see a music video for this song, featuring midget back-up singers.

Victoria still has hissy fits over Sandra, and instead of breaking a piano over her petulant head Joel asks her to marry him. She says no. In this scene he’s falling apart and she looks like she’s watching a documentary about steel production in Kazakhstan.

Joel declares that he will marry the first woman he sees, and of course that woman is Sandra. They get married in a ritual in Sagada, but they think they’re in the cast of The Great Gatsby.

Miffed that Joel actually carried out his threat, Victoria refuses to sing any of his songs. The dying Sandra goes to Victoria and begs her to sing her husband’s songs. She admits that all of his songs were written for Victoria. Victoria says no.

At this point the only possible satisfactory ending is for Sandra’s illness to go away so she and Joel can live happily ever after. And for Barbra Streisand to commission Joel to write an album’s worth of songs, and all of Victoria’s albums to flop. But that’s not what happens.

I hate the ending.