“LA QUERIDA” is a movie with two stories.
One story concerns young lovers in their 20s, Joel (Arron Villaflor) and Maria (Angela Morena), and the other story is about an older couple in their 40s, Leo (Jay Manalo) and Connie (Mercedes Cabral).
At first, we don’t know how the two stories are connected, but just like in “Bela Luna” that had two stories both starring Angeli Khang, the two stories in “La Querida” are also connected but in a way that’s vastly different from “Bela Luna”.
As a film with two stories that turn out to be interrelated, it will remind you more of “The Notebook”, which is also about the love story of a young couple and an older couple.
The movie starts with Arron and Angela meeting in front of the Rizal Monument in Luneta while Angela is reading Rizal’s “Mi Ultimo Adios”.
They quickly hit if off, have coffee and they end up in bed in Arron’s hotel room.
Angela meant it to be a one night stand but obviously, she cannot resist Arron, so she returns to him and they start living together.
Angela has a boorish father (Rey Abellana) while Arron also has serious mommy issues of his own.
Their relationship ends when Angela turns out to be already married, to Josef Elizalde as Javy.
Arron feels so hurt that he turned out to be just a “kerido”.
In the case of Jay, he’s married to Yda Manzano and they have a daughter.
Then he meets Mercedes in church and it turns out she is really stalking him and is willing to be his “kerida”.
Of course, we cannot spoil the film by revealing here how exactly the two couples are related, but we must say that scriptwriter Eric Ramos did a good job of giving a good resolution to the two stories.
But whether you will buy it or not really depends a lot on the casting of the lead roles.
If you bought “The Notebook” and its premise that Ryan Gosling will look like James Garner and Rachel MacAdams will look like Gena Rowlands in their old age, then you would have no trouble embracing the conceit of “La Querida”.
The movie is well acted. Arron and Angela are good in their casual banter scenes as well as the serious dramatic scenes after he discovers that she is already married.
Jay and Mercedes have splendid dramatic chemistry on screen.
Giving them great support are Aurora Sevilla as Mercedes’ well heeled mom who is a balikbayan from the States, Irma Adlawan as Jay’s aristocratic grandmother and Andrew Muhlach as Arron’s very supportive best friend.
This is Director GB Sampedro’s best realized work for Vivamax as he is able to interweave the two stories persuasively, thanks to the superb cinematography by Carlo Montano.
But regular Vivamax subscribers might be disappointed as the sexy love scenes seem to have been toned and are not as intensely hot or brazen as previous Vivamax releases.