One of my office mates asked me if I had seen this movie yet, and for a long while there I thought he was kidding. I had no intentions to go in and see this film, but his question got me thinking: I hadn’t seen a local movie since Girl, Boy, Bakla, Tomboy. And since nothing else was showing, well, why not?

I had no idea that this was based on a Wattpad story though. How cool is that? It’s like a fan fiction writer being published!

Here’s my round up of Andoy Ranay (When the Love Is Gone)’s Diary Ng Panget.

Please note that there may be spoilers. Read at your own risk.

THE STORY:

Eya Rodriguez (Nadine Lustre) is an acne-ridden teen orphan who is forced to take up a job as a personal maid to the most horrible teenager on earth, Cross Sanford (James Reid), just so she can support herself. It doesn’t help that Cross has no qualms about making her life miserable, both at home and at school. He even went as far as to sic his hordes of fan girls on Eya just because she annoyed him.

Thank goodness that Eya made good friends out of Chad Jimenez (Andre Paras), the quintessential nice guy who always ended up rescuing her, and out of Lory Keet (Yassi Pressman), the only girl who ever showed her kindness. Trouble is, Chad has a crush on Lory, who has a crush on Cross and somehow Eya got stuck right smack in the middle.

THE GOOD:

1. Nadine Lustre was extremely likable, a feat considering that the character was basically someone very annoying. I think she held the film together quite well; it wasn’t incredibly taxing to follow her for most of the movie.
2. Andre Paras was good! He was the only one who hit all the humorous notes, which, for a newbie is admirable.
3. The backdrops were gorgeous. The house they shot in had an amazing city view and the “school” was very charming.
4. Gabby Concepcion. Damn, he looked good in those suits. It was an extremely small role and the character was nothing more than a plot device to shell out money but Gabby Concepcion gave it depth.
5. There wasn’t an ugly-duckling-to-swan transformation. Well, not a major one, at least. They did give Eya the derma meds to clear up the acne but thank goodness it didn’t work overnight.

THE BAD:

1. The weird editing. There were no transitions at all and the ending of the scenes them felt abrupt. It felt very amateurish, like the projects one submits for school.
2. The Apple laptop scene. What the hell was that? Although I mag have taken it a tad bit personally because my Macbook’s one of those old school white ones, you know? But seriously though, that sequence should’ve been cut (and quite a few scenes just like it) because not everybody understood and most of the people in the cinema with me were left scratching their heads.
3. James Reid and Yassi Pressman weren’t bad, per se, but they still have miles to go in terms of comedic timing. The crying and emotional bits they had nailed down but anything past that they were a bit awkward to watch. I’m not sure if it was just an issue of them not being familiar with Tagalog but a little bit more training for them, I think.

THE UGLY:

1. The random plot arcs that weren’t resolved. The film makers opened a lot of subplots in this film that they didn’t really bother to develop. I get that it was based on an online story, but still, there was a screenplay writer who should’ve polished it better.

All in all Ang Diary Ng Panget is an OK movie. It wasn’t horrendously terrible but it wasn’t particularly good either, which is a shame because the actors were really good (or at least you can feel them trying). The source material was incredibly thin and the treatment of the film makers didn’t do anything to make that work in their favor. I think that this could’ve worked as a straight comedy had they lopped off a lot of the plot arcs they threw into the mix. As it is, the whole thing just feels disjointed and abrupt.

THE VERDICT: 4/10. It had its moments but I probably wouldn’t sit through this again even if shown on cable.

*All photos are lifted from the film’s Facebook page.