Jim Carrey tried to show he could do serious roles before with Number 23. I guess it is not an abberation to say that Michael V is somewhat the Jim Carrey of the Philippines. However, the directorial debut of Michael V. (popularly known as Bitoty) which is Family History is no The Number 23 since there was no radical change in his look. But, he did do a Ben Affleck by casting himself in the lead role.
During the first few minutes of the film, if you watch Pepito Manaloto, the setup is very familiar. There's him, Alex, a graphic designer married for a long time to his beautiful wife, May (Dawn Zulueta), and then a popular loveteam Biguel play boyfriend and girlfriend. Bianca Umali play Jenna, the girlfriend of his musician son Malik (Miguel Tanfelix). However, despite a successful career and a beautiful wife, he discovers an illness can change the way he looks at his marriage and his job.
Frankly, I understood the need for fanfare given that it is risky if there was none since this is a film made by GMA productions after 3 years in cooperation with Mic Test Entertainment. By fanfare, I meant Alex reminding people that he is Bitoy by always being ready with a punchline when the going gets tough. It would have been interesting to see him do a straight drama film though since he was able to handle the dramatic bits quite well and was able to hold his own against Dawn, whose eyes speak volumes even if her character was soft-spoken. The way Alex character was written also shows a unique quality of a Filipino, which is to actually use humor to hide everything even if things are boiling up inside.
This film has a very strong supporting cast too particularly Kakai Bautista who played May's BFF. I think it is high time she gets a leading role. There's also this short dude who played the bully. He really made an impact despite his character being quite one-dimensional when it comes to writing. My favorite scene of him was the look of awe and perhaps penance on his face as he finally watched Malik's band play their new song onstage. There's also this mobile phone sales staff in a scene with Alex and I am pretty sure you will not forget her just as you would not forget the number 46 after you watch the film.
If there's anything that needs improvement, I think it is the musical scoring. There are times when it's distracting, especially that playful melody when something is very serious and Alex suddenly wants to be funny. It would be better if there was less scoring throught the film. The best technical aspects of the film is the variety of camera angles, the intercuts involving animation which serve as Alex' imagination, and the prostethics a character wore which was so real I thought this person actually sacrificed for the role.
Family History runs for almost 2 hours but you will really never notice the time since whatever it says makes a lot of sense.
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