Sharon, BFF and Her Fans

It was a perplexing experience.

So... for the second time this week, I watched Sharon Cuneta's latest movie, "BFF - Best Friends Forever" - a project that the megastar considers as "my first all-out comedy", a statement that's spurious. To start with, this multi-media superstar has appeared in several all-out comedies before: "Jack & Jill" with Herbert Bautista, and its sequel "... Sa Amerika"; there's the inane "Megamol" which couldn't be anything less than an "all-out comedy" too. But hey, Sharon is known in the business as one who acquires a very sharp wit and keen memory. She remembers names of people - fans she has met only once, reporters who met her fleetingly, etc. Kris Aquino is said to be the same - that's why they inspire fanaticism.

Then comes Sharon's penchant for hyperbole. When she meets a person she takes a liking to, she says, "I really, really like you. I am a fan." And she says this to so many people. It is not that I am questioning her sincerity, because I do believe that she is one of the sincerest of the big stars. I am just stating that the Megastar - in all her earnest or gargantuan achievements - loves to please people. And who wouldn't fall under her spell when she declares that she likes you? Mortals prove powerless to Sharon's megawatt charms! She is one in a million!

Which takes me to watching "BFF" for the second time. I must have missed something the first time I watched it. Coz in all my fandom's ruminations, I seem to have missed any merits that would make a megastar do a movie like BFF - specifically NOT after a box-office and critical success like "Caregiver" that has succeeded in placing her capabilities as an actress into even greater echelons, than what she was known for. She has derived greater respectability as an actress, not just as a star.

I am aware though that one can't do a "Caregiver" all the time, but a "BFF" to add a creamy coating to a gem like "Caregiver" borders on the realm of thoughtlessness.

I am a fan. In fact, I am a 3rd generation fan. Question this fact and I will counter you with every silly trivias, every unfamiliar Sharon ditties of the past, every little movies that no one's ever seen. My grannies are huge followers; so are my parents who were weaned on "Dear Heart", "High School", " Cross My Heart", "Hagkan"and "Dapat Ka Bang Mahalin" way until they marched down the aisle and had me. One cannot help becoming a fan after growing up with a huge collection of vinyls spinning "Swing ang tawag dito... pinaghalong boogie at tango...", thanks to my folks I have learned a helluva trivias that will make me champion on any Sharon Cuneta trivia show. I have grown up with 3 - no - 4 Japanese spitzes named Bubbles - named after Sharon's spitz way back Dasmarinas days in Paraiso Street! But fans also deserve a certain degree of consideration: that the artists we actually look up to do not mock her own weight problems and inadequacies at discipline. That the artists we adore tries to take care of how she looks!

BFF - the movie, teeters unequally between drama and comedy.

If this was "an all-out comedy", the laughs are few and far between - I missed all the punchlines, except 3 scenes, none of which involve Sharon. Fortunately for me, the audience that was with me were also staid, serious... no knee-slapping guffaws and rollicking laughter. I wasn't alone after all. They must have expected the beeline from the masa - after all, Ai ai is there and her crowd will draw the comic fans - but we were so few in cinema 4 of Megamall on a suweldo weekend Saturday. Maybe it's coz there are 2 other theatres showing BFF in Mega? Maybe. One thing is sure, if this were an experiment, the comeuppance tilts towards a failed experiment.

Had this project - which the ads on TV label as "certified box office hit" - become a mammoth hit, THIS would have given the megastar the lazy excuse of appearing again in a comedy, with a girth 3x bigger than John Estrada, one of the disadvantages of a crane shot.

Sharon is a leading lady, the biggest of the lot! This shouldn't be literally interpreted by Sharon who seems to have forgotten that certain degree of responsibility to appear fit and healthy and leading-lady-like FOR her fans - if not for her own health, then for those who have amassed a lifetime collection of memorabilias throughout these years. I silently grieved for my parent's silence as we headed back home, that day after we watched BFF.

Amen.