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Etiquette for Mistresses Review: Surprisingly refreshing

Etiquette for mistresses movie review

Video Etiquette for mistresses movie review

etiquette for mistresses by chito roño, inspired by a book by julie yap daza, begins with a streaming video of a violent confrontation between a wife and a mistress.

georgia (kris aquino), chloe (claudine barretto), stella (iza footwear) and charley (cheena crab), who are shown huddled together watching the unfortunate events that have gone viral before their eyes, are ironically also lovers .

united by indiscretion

georgia, chloe, stella and charley are from different backgrounds, but are united by being the subjects of other people’s indiscretions. Charley is the lucky charm of a rich tycoon, Stella, a trial lawyer, and Chloe, creative director of an advertising agency.

Georgia, a successful restaurateur, has been asked by her lover to train a young woman in the ways of being a mistress. The new mistress is Ina (Kim Chiu), a lounge singer who has been plucked from her native Cebu to become the kept mistress of a president’s husband.

Screengrab from YouTube/Star Cinema

The sporadic plot of etiquette for lovers is part of the little lessons Georgia teaches Ina. As Ina transforms from lovestruck, weeping waif into Georgia’s favorite student, Roño touches on the secret world that exists in the upper-class Manila family where mistresses exist.

It is this duality in both the lives of the characters and the world they live in that makes the film highly intriguing despite its overt indulgences. Roño acknowledges both the fantasies and the realities of the subject he wishes to dissect and presents a balanced portrait of women of questionable virtue.

beyond histrionics

we are all addicted to scandals and prone to judgment in the midst of evidence of our own faults.

Screengrab from YouTube/Star Cinema

This addiction has led to films such as No Other Woman (2011) by Ruel Bayani, The Mistress (2012) by Olivia Lamasan and The Love Affair (2015) by Nuel Naval, all of them focused on extramarital affairs and their scandalous consequences. , they are such popular hits . faced with exaggerated melodramas of other people’s affairs, we leave with the false but favorable feeling that we are the cleanest of all.

Fortunately, the lousy movie doesn’t end with the free sample of histrionics that offers a bland sense of sanctity. True, it begins with characters displaying a more than amusing attitude towards the repercussions of living a life defined by illicit affairs. the intro though. it also puts the spotlight not on the characters’ spectacular misdeeds, but on their humanity, which has unfortunately been drowned out by the vapid lack of responsibility of recent pop culture.

despite their unpopular choice for love, these lovers still breathe, hurt, laugh and sin like the rest of us. they are allowed to revel in other people’s misfortunes, even if it is too close to their situations. they are allowed to gossip, exhibit extravagance, become jealous and also love without limits.

Screengrab from YouTube/Star Cinema

balancing act

lover etiquette is a breath of fresh air amidst the countless infidelity movies that offer nothing but outrageous confrontations between wife, husband and lover as cheap entertainment.

By consciously keeping the other side of the fence, the more legal one, almost invisible, Rono avoids complicating his film with cheap tactics. focuses on what goes on in the shadows, what goes on in the affairs of those who made mistakes rather than those who were wronged, and in doing so presents a novel perspective in the way that it skips over traditional notions of what is right and wrong.

Please note that the film does not condone infidelity. what it does is simply present a fictional story that has not been clouded by ruthless morality. rono uses humor, gloss, and simplistic ideals of love and romance to distract from moral ambiguity.

However, as the film progresses, the characters become less attached to their label as lovers, and instead become defined by their professions and their loyalty to each other.

Incredible as it may seem, the film actually celebrates love by finding beauty in it, even if it exists in the ugliest of settings.

Screengrab from YouTube/Star Cinema

betrayed by the end

The biggest thrust of the mistress etiquette is that all of its characters are never portrayed as damsels in distress in need of rescue by their male counterparts. despite her condition of being madly in love with the opposite sex, the film still removes the conventional mechanic of her men saving them.

everyone ends up being their own heroine or heroine to each other, even in circumstances where they are typically portrayed as an epitome of feminine weakness.

Sadly, even the sleazy veteran filmmaker succumbs to the allure and temptations of a fairy tale ending.

everything that makes the mistress etiquette different from the rest of its kind is abandoned in the final montage of what happened to its 5 characters after the main events of the film.

In the quickest of changes, the film transforms from refreshingly undaunted by traditional morality to something woefully critical and backward, offering the idea of ​​a happy ending for the lovers the scene of them abandoning their contentious fate for something that is more socially acceptable. . -rappler.com

more etiquette stories for lovers

  • in photos: ‘etiquette for mistresses’ opening night
  • see: kris aquino, kim chiu, claudine barretto in ‘etiquette for mistresses’ trailer
  • kris, claudine , kim, iza, cheena share why they’re pro-divorce
  • kris aquino, iza footwear, claudine barretto on the subject of mistresses
  • kris aquino back in ‘etiquette for lovers’ movie
  • kris aquino drops out of ‘lover’ movie

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