THIS rom-com chick flick is the third film that I watched on 9 June.

I needed something to lift my spirit after the film that had preceded it. I knew nothing about it. We don’t see many Filipino films in Canberra. This one delivers low-energy drama wrapped in agreeable charm.

It’s very girly, especially when they get together with shrieks of giggly delight. The plot has room for only one good-looking bloke, JC (Piolo Pascual) whose reputation as the country’s best DJ is beginning to slide. JC personifies the film’s message, the unwisdom of judging a book by its cover.

A mother of adult children, Christy (Dawn Zulueta) has had only one man in her life and he’s recently dead. Her dress shop and her Great Dane also, coincidentally called JC, occupy her time. Until the day JC the dog runs into JC the DJ. From this fateful encounter, director Gino M Santos teases out the remainder of the film’s 128 minutes.

JC the DJ is a babe magnet over whom Janine (Coleen Garcia) thinks she holds proprietary rights. Here’s the eternal triangle with a 35-year-old man at the apex, a pretty 25-year-old babe at one end of the base and an enduringly attractive 50-year-old woman at the other. These ages have a significant influence on the film’s dramatic tenor.

The writer’s name is not credited but he or (more probably) she wraps up the plot credibly, even if a little less than reassuringly. And all the dialogue is subtitled, including when the characters speak English.

At Hoyts Belconnen