JessicaRulestheUniverse.com

BFF opens with a Tagalog movie cliche: the dead man in his coffin, his grieving wife (Sharon Cuneta) standing by, primly dressed in white, his mistress (Ai-Ai de las Alas) arriving all dressed in black topped with a veil. Confrontation is in the air: you wait for wife and mistress to unleash the zingers, it’s all very trite. But director Wenn Deramas proceeds to thwart your expectations. This star vehicle pairing the box-office champions of the 80s-90s and the 00s is funny and sometimes clever—it gives the audience what they want while making fun of their illusions.

I am reminded of a scene in Ishmael Bernal’s underrated sex-comedy Salawahan. (Yes, I’m invoking Bernal in a review of a Star Cinema product.) In this bit, naughty sex researcher Rita Gomez runs into cosmopolitan designer Sandy Andolong, whose boyfriend Jay Ilagan she has just seduced. The two bitches consider each other.

Rita Gomez: Magko-confrontation ba tayo?
Sandy Andolong: Huwag na, nakakapagod.

BFF has a little of that playfulness. Along with a ton of stupid gags, but it’s there. Sharon plays a devoted mother married to John Estrada, who is banging the gym dance instructor played by Ai-Ai. So Sharon decides to enroll at a gym, and as cinematic laws of probability would have it, Ai-Ai becomes her coach and BFF. How do two capable women manage to avoid discovering that they’re talking about the same man? The filmmakers mine this unbelievable premise for laughs—there’s a moment of true absurdity when the revelation is foiled by cellphone snatchers. You have to approve of a movie that says, “The problem is not that your wife’s gotten fat or your mistress jumped you in a moment of weakness. The problem is that you’re a dog.” Apologies to actual canines.

Of course there are the requisite parodies of Sharon movies. The biggest hommage is reserved for the ending. Don’t blink.

(Fabia says Ai-Ai’s Ina Mo movies are funnier.)