SHARON CUNETA ENGAGES IN THESPIC BRINKMANSHIP
by Nestor U. Torre, Inquirer News Service, June 19, 2002

Emotionally-demanding role

SHARON Cuneta essays one of the most emotionally demanding roles in her career in her latest film, "Magkapatid." To her credit, she hits all the right emotive buttons, and shows various, even contradictory sides to her character, some of them not very likable.

This is quite daring on her part, because moviegoers here prefer their leading ladies to be true-blue protagonists and not semi-antagonists. And yet Sharon is able to engage in this kind of thespic brinkmanship while not turning off her audience, which generously "forgives" her character in the end.

Sharon's flaw in this movie is her decision to "attack" her really emotional scenes head-on, with previous few nuances and insightful moments of irony.

This all-stops-out approach is "for the fans," of course, and it does add power to her performance. But it is too facile a thespic choice. Her character would have revealed more of herself if the actress had decided to temper her all-out grief with other emotional shadings and insights.

In "Magkapatid," Sharon and Judy Ann Santos play loving sisters who live very different lives. Sharon has a wealthy husband (Christopher de Leon), a flourishing medical practice, and a son whom she loves to bits.

In contrast, Judy Ann is financially strapped, has a drummer (Dingdong Dantes) for a loving but improvident husband, and two sons (one of them sickly) to take care of.

Older sister Sharon keeps helping Judy Ann out with doleouts, and even makes it easy for Judy Ann and Dingdong to acquire their own duplex across the street from her elegant home.

She does this happily, out of the goodness of her heart-until something happens that sends her happy life into a tragic tailspin.

That "something" is the death by drowning of her son, while he's under Judy Ann's care. One of Judy Ann's children also dies in the boating accident, but this means nothing to Sharon. All she cares about is the fact that her only son is dead.

Immediately after the tragic accident, the "good" older sister turns nasty and blames Judy Ann for the death of her son. She cuts off all financial help to Judy Ann and Dingdong, and they are forced to live a life of penury.

Worse, Sharon shuts Christopher out of her pain, and he is eventually compelled to leave her. And, worst of all, Sharon forces Judy Ann to "give" her remaining son to her, as "recompense" for her own son's death.

It is at this point that the movie's dramatic developments turn turgidly melodramatic. But Sharon is still able to keep things fairly believable, despite some occasional excesses.

In the end, of course, Sharon finally realizes how unfair and even cruel she's been in allowing her grief to blind her and heap even more grief on herself and the people she loves.

This is clearly Sharon's film, so she has most of the dramatic highlights. Despite this, Judy Ann is still able to get in some thespic points.

Unfortunately, since this appears to have been conceptualized as a "woman's picture," the male leads are generally left in the periphery of the emotional action.