IT’S HEARTENING TO SEE that TV-film producers are entrusting big projects to relatively young stars. This affirms the mass viewing audience’s currently “youthening” demographics, and prepares the new generation of stars to take over from senior luminaries, thus keeping the TV-film industry fresh, dynamic and relevant.
Unfortunately, it looks like quite a number of young stars aren’t fully prepared for the big breaks coming their way. This perceived deficiency in both capacity and achievement has compromised some big projects of late, and made shows and films on local screens even less remarkable than they used to be.
Unless producers give the major acting breaks to deserving young stars, the situation could go from worse to worst in only a couple of show biz seasons.
Challenging scenes
Take the “love team” of Kim Chiu and Gerald Anderson. They’ve just come from a hit teleserye and movie (“Paano Na Kaya”), but their performances have generally missed the mark. Gerald did fairly well in their teleserye, but Kim failed to measure up to the challenging scenes that the show had thought up for her to “prove” that she was a competent thespian.
She was simply too young and raw to do full justice to those difficult scenes, so the series’ creative staff should be rapped for its poor judgment and handling.
Kim is also hobbled by her irritatingly flat and sometimes squeaky speaking voice, and by her excessive facial movements and mannerisms. They reveal her basic lack of discipline, focus and confidence, and make her portrayals distracting to watch.
Proof
In “Paano Na Kaya,” both Kim and Gerald are compromised by the movie’s excessively high “kilig value,” which sometimes makes its two young leads’ portrayals shallow, banal and silly. The fact that even Gerald does badly in the film is proof positive that you can’t escape getting affected and pulled down by the mediocre company you keep.
Is there hope for Kim and Gerald? She needs to be “workshopped” a lot to minimize her facial and vocal flaws, and he should be put in more sensible and emotionally cogent projects that can more productively build on his progressive improvement as an actor.
Aside from the “Kimerald” tandem, other stars have turned in less than superlative performances of late. Sometimes, the fault lies not in the actors, but in the roles they’re made to portray.
For instance, in the recent hit, “Miss You Like Crazy,” Bea Alonzo is burdened by the glum, ditzy and emotionally helter-skelter character she portrays. For his part, Bea’s leading man, John Lloyd Cruz, has to deal with his role’s own encumbrances, namely his cliche problems, like being engaged to his boss’ “pluperfect” daughter, etc.
Past starrers
In some of their past starrers, Bea and John Lloyd have shown that they’re made of sterner thespic stuff, but their latest movie has served them less well, and that’s a pity.
Worse, John Lloyd has to contend with the extra problem of being upstaged by the swarthy and emotionally charged Malaysian actor who is cast as Bea’s beau in the movie’s Kuala Lumpur sequences. Despite his best efforts, John Lloyd looks like an emotionally sallow and callow wimp beside him.
To truly come into their own, young and young-adult stars need to keep doing increasingly better work if they want to emerge as their generation’s Vilma Santos or Christopher de Leon. (Ironically, even Christopher has picked up some bad thespic habits in his mature years—but, that’s another story.)
