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Sept 3, 2010
Four years after her last big screen project , the Chito Rono-helmed horror movie “Sukob,” Claudine Barretto returns to a genre she is most comfortable with and where she really shines – drama. “In Your Eyes,” the co-production venture between GMA Films and Viva Films is a love triangle melodrama that has echoes of “Soltera,” one of the movies that Barretto performed in when she was still in her old studio, ABSCBN.
In the said 1999 Star Cinema opus which also starred Maricel Soriano and Diether Ocampo, Claudine played the younger woman who steals the boyfriend of her lady boss, a wedding planner (Maricel Soriano). This time around, Claudine plays the older woman who gets involved with her younger sister Anne Curtis’ boyfriend (Richard Gutierrez).
The bright news is that in “In Your Eyes,” Claudine Barretto regains her old sheen which many observers feel has been greatly diminished in the years that followed her marriage to Raymart Santiago in March 2006. All of Claudine’s subsequent efforts after marriage and motherhood – the soaps “Walang Kapalit,” “Maligno,” and “Iisa Pa Lamang” – yielded results that were no way near the wonderful outcome of her projects as an unmarried woman.
With her surprise transfer to GMA-7 in early 2010, Claudine supporters were pinning hopes on her first Kapuso show, the drama anthology “Claudine.” Sadly, the said series did not perform marvelously in the way Mariel Soriano’s erstwhile “Maricel Drama Special” lasted a record 10 uninterrupted years on air. Critics were also somehow unanimous that Claudine often seemed uninspired in her playing. She was not the same Claudine who can be counted on to deliver the goods. Viewers were looking for the spunk, verve, enthusiasm, poignancy that defined her acclaimed performances in career highlights as the less-favored daughter Lena in “Kailangan Kita,” the beleaguered OFW Jenny in “Milan” and even the rape victim Pilar in “Nasaan Ka Man.”
And in a business where even huge stars like Barretto are not entirely indispensable, tongues started to wag: is Claudine Barretto on the way down? Was it safe to conclude that with the emergence of new Kapamilya leading ladies like Bea Alonzo and Angelica Panganiban, there was no more room for the former queen of the lot? Would her decision to switch networks give her seemingly sagging career a new lease on life? Claudine’s performance in “In Your Eyes” provides the answers to those questions. As Ciara, the self-sacrificing older sister, Claudine comes back strong. It is as though she is telling the whole world that no, she is not about to be written off. Not just yet. And some of the more discriminating members of media who seated through the movie’s August 15 premiere at SM Megamall are one in pointing out that in terms of performance merits, Claudine fares best.
Even when she is hampered by an uneven script that raises too many questions about certain plot turns and character motivations, Barretto seizes the day and comes up with an affecting, mature portrayal. Curtis is effective in some scenes but then, a number of well-performed scenes do not exactly make a performance, or does it? The most kawawa in the lot is Richard Gutierrez whose character Storm suffers from being sloppily-written. Even in that one scene where Gutierrez almost hits the bull’s eye – we are referring to that sequence where Curtis decides that the best way to love Gutierrez’s character is to let him go – it is enough that Richard’s reaction is muted with a single drop of tear falling from his right eye, as the late great Lino Brocka will have directed it. It really should have ended there. But then, perhaps the director (we are not really certain who the culprit is), who seems to have a penchant for histrionics, allows Richard to let out a scream and even punch the wall for more dramatic effect. Sadly, it only ruined the whole scene.
In contrast, Claudine’s most striking scene, that breakdown sequence in the car, is shot in medium long shot. Bereaved, confused and torn between her great love for her sister and her growing feelings for a man she should not have fallen for, Barretto does not strike a false note. It is accomplished quietly, simply, without any hint of exaggeration, sans hysteria. The results are very, very touching, indeed.