We never thought Derek would be effectively exhilarating as a debonair leading man in a light romance like this. As Julian Parker, he’s a Fil-Am with an American dad and a Pinay mom who was raised in New York. When the film starts, he’s looking for a Filipino English tutor who’ll teach him how to speak Tagalog fluently so he can insult his Pinay girlfriend who jilted him in our native language.
The opening sequence is a hilarious montage of various scenes showing him interviewing various applicants. This has been done before in other movies, both local and foreign, but the best remains to be the original such scene in “The Fabulous Baker Boys” where Michelle Pfeiffer applies as a torch singer. All subsequent replicas pale in comparison.
Derek chooses Jennylyn Mercado to be his tutor. He then comes to Manila and she fetches him at the airport. It’s easy to see from the start that they will eventually end up with each other. And how they get from here to there is part of the viewer’s journey inside the movie house.
There are some “laylay” scenes in the course of the narrative, but through it all, Derek manages to remain unscathed with his charming screen persona that makes him pull it off with grace and style. We love the scene where he skypes with his dad and you can see how much they really care for each other. It turns out Derek’s mom left them for another guy when he was still a child. How Derek slowly falls for Jennylyn is also amusing to watch.
As for Jennylyn, you somehow root for her, mainly because she is such a dutiful daughter to her mom (Lyn Ynchausti Cruz in her first movie role) and brothers (Ian de Leon and Jeffrey Hidalgo) who live in the province and are more of a burden to her. But she’s not the kind of lily white pristine heroine we’d all prefer to root for. She goes regularly to bed with an asshole, Kean Cipriano, who has previously dumped her, and she still gives him expensive gifts like a laptop and even pays for their motel room.
This makes her quite cheap but, in all fairness to Jennylyn, she manages to shine in a number of comic scenes, especially in that crucial scene when Derek finally gets to meet his ex, Megan (Isabel Oli), and Jennylyn repeats to herself all the lines she taught him to tell her when he confronts him. This is a Jennylyn so different from her tortured multiple dramatic roles in "Rhodora X". Giving good support is Cai Cortez as Jennylyn’s best friend who’s a single mom and is shown to be having a string of boyfriends in the course of the movie.
In the end, it’s really a feel good movie for those who believe in romance. It's competently directed by Dan Villegas, who also authored the story with his real life innamorata, Antoinette Jadaone, who then co-wrote the full script with another writer. Direk Dan Villegas has previously helmed the fetching Cinemalaya entry, “Mayohan”, which we really enjoyed and for which Lovi Poe won a best actress award. He says he’s more of a DOP (director of photography).
A graduate of interdisciplinary studies from the Ateneo, he apprenticed with the late Marilou Diaz Abaya and first worked as a DOP in the 2006 Cinemanila entry, “Numbalik Diwa”, starring Maricel Soriano. His last films as a DOP are “Beauty in a Bottle” and “Relaks It’s Just Pag-ibig”, both helmed by his ladylove. He was also the DOP of such romcoms for Star Cinema as “Bride for Rent”, “She’s the One”, “Bakit Di Ka Crush ng Crush Mo” and “She’s Dating the Gangster”. In “English Only, Please”, he also does work as the DOP. Technical credits are all above average, particularly the perky musical score of Emerson Texon.
