Jay Abello’s Pinay Beauty: She’s No White does not waste its time in showing its intentions, one of which is to poke fun at the many demands of our insecurities constantly playing in our heads. We are instantly introduced to the world of Chai Fonacier’s Annie and her dreams of having skin so fair, so “white”—like Disney’s Snow White but with bigger boobs. “I am happy when I am beautiful,” she would say. And serving as a tension to this journey to voluptuous whiteness, the story parallels to Migs (played by Edgar Allan Guzman), Annie’s boyfriend, who has wronged his uncle after stealing money for Annie’s plastic surgery. It also throws into the mix Maxine Medina’s Lovely G, a morena princess-like celebrity who dreams of getting better roles, to further complicate the movie’s attempts at social criticism. Despite the breeziness and mostly unassuming demeanor of comedy, everybody should know that comedy is not easy. And for someone reason, it feels like Pinay Beauty knows this very well, too, because it strains extra hard to make these scattered elements work. Yes, it is funny, it is charming, and this movie can be Chai Fonacier’s validation that she could lead a movie. She effectively portrays the whiplash changes of her character’s emotions. The movie does have the absurdities that are a requisite of a work of satire, but Pinay Beauty feels like it is pulling its punches, does not whole-heartedly embrace the dark, ironic humor that often comes with risky decisions. You know, like going under the knife to look better and, thus, feel better? The movie slightly touches on the issue of beauty and what constitutes the idea of beauty in the Filipino context, but slight is not what we need. All in all, the treatment that we get is harmless and tame for this subject matter. For first time in a long time, I think this is a movie that simply stumbles for being not ridiculous and exaggerated enough.
[ photo borrowed from this site ]
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