Review of Beauty in a Bottle (2014) by Gabriel B — 16 Dec 2014

"Come back to the young and beautiful you.".

Three thoroughly engaging stand-alone stories of three different women and the concept of beauty, tied together under the market-oriented reality and a guidebook on success. Well-paced and varied approaches working seamlessly together, anchored on three embattled but differently empowered non-one-dimensional women within their own crisis, Beauty in a Bottle is a fresh comedy with the right sensibilities.

Aside from its take on the advertising industry, a highlight would be the blatant product endorsement by Belo defying the usual sales pitch of beautification products. With the wrong treatment, this could have been a subject of laughter for Belo just like how The Internship was to Google but the screenplay and characterization was tight to undermine the possibility of this trying to be one just big advertising stunt.

What I hoped though was a more satisfying conclusion for Estelle Suarez, palyed by Angelica Panganiban, who had the least fortunate ending despite her efforts. It might be a stab though as well to the ills of selling beauty and to balance out the positive energy from the two other leads' stories. In any case, it was a thrill to see Angelica and the self-deprecating humor.

I hope Antoinette Jadaone makes more comedy-dramas but less use of her typical comedic scene of "Ako na ang pangit/mataba/single. Kayo na ang maganda/sexy/masaya/judgmental" They were impressively implemented in this, Tadhana, and the trailer of English Only, Please but I wish for more of her other clever tropes in her next films.