Death of a Girlfriend Review – AJ Raval, Diego Loyzaga
Here’s my Death of a Girlfriend review which stars Diego Loyzaga and AJ Raval and directed by Yam Laranas. Now streaming on VivaMax!
Director Yam Laranas is doing a potentially good murder mystery in the vein of “Rashomon“. Loyzaga plays Alonzo and Raval plays Christine, two lovers whose relationship ends up tragically. In the movie is framed in a police investigation after AJ Raval’s character was found dead in the forest. Alonzo together with two other characters, a forest ranger (Arnold Reyes) and a farmer (Raul Morit) are interrogated for their involvement in the crime. The film then asks the viewers who they think is the real culprit.
Raval’s performance here is somewhat tough to point whether good or so-so. This is her second R-rated film her first being PagLaki Ko, Gusto Kong Maging Pornstar where she did some daring scenes here and there. Here she also does several sex scenes with breast exposure but she does still show inhibitions and self-consciousness. Even in normal scenes, she delivers dialogue that’s phoned in. She says “ang saya saya ko” but she doesn’t look or sound happy at all. Promising but right now still needs to get more workshops in. But if you’re the type of viewer who just wants to watch her for her looks, she’s very pretty.
Loyzaga plays an almost convincing naive young man who falls in love with a country girl. There were some moments you have to do suspension of belief especially in more “mature” scenes. Still, he delivers a good performance especially he goes all “manic” mode.
Viewers need to understand before hitting the “play” button that the movie that the film’s style is slow and from a vantage point story. So they need to realize that the film is structured and made to be inconsistent and untruthful. Everybody has a motive and everybody in the story has an agenda. Three characters with three different ways of telling the story. The farmer thinks the ranger is lazy and stupid and is convinced that the ranger killed and raped the victim; so on and so forth.
Also the part about the rope being in question is just so dumb for me. Look, unless the rope looks really different, how can you even consider this and turn this into a major topic for the story. Maybe its because of the setting and the limited locales but come on.
Gotta hand it to direk Yam also for putting in a specific ending (although again, this is an unreliable narrator) which is terrifying to think about. This was his movie but I would have wanted to see the film have an open ending just like its template. But I guess Filipino moviegoers aren’t really ready for that sort of thing so having this ending is OK.
Death of a Girlfriend Review – Verdict
7/10
It’s an ok movie. Raval continues to show promise albeit she’s not in her 100% yet here. Loyzaga is ok but compared to such veterans as Morit and Reyes, he could have upped his game. Still a good flick to watch this weekend.
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