A Very Good Girl (2023)
A Very Good Girl is a Filipino dark comedy starring Kathryn Bernado as Mercy and Dolly de Leon as Mother Molly. When Mercy is fired for no reason by her boss, the ruthless Mother Molly Suzara, she plots to ruin Molly’s life and take everything from her. It’s 9 to 5 meets Office Space meets Mommie Dearest. Kind of. If those movies were on crack.
While I enjoyed the movie quite a bit, I do have some reservations. F-bombs fall like rain, and to a lesser extent obvious fake blood, so if anyone is sensitive to those sorts of things, well…
Allowances must be made for dark comedies, though, so shock is gonna happen.
Mercy and her mother try to sue Molly for wrongful termination but they’re told they don’t have a case, and in desperation Mercy’s mother rushes up to Molly in a parking lot and begs for Mercy to get her job back, only to get hit by a car. Molly leaves while Mercy clutches her mom, screaming in terror.
Since she can’t get her job back, Mercy toils away as an online scam artist, but then she becomes Philomena Angeles, a wealthy socialite and restauranteur, with, again, the aim of getting close to Molly and ruining her. In order to do that, though, she has to dig up dirt. Lots of dirt. And she has to be just as ruthless as Molly in some ways, from acting quite the martinet with the staff to posting a sex tape starring one of Molly’s spokeswomen. At home Mercy hangs a dartboard with photos of all of Molly’s close associates pasted all over it and Molly in the center. As she makes a conquest, she checks them off in one way or another.
Things get a little blurred after a while, though, because Mercy ends up winning Molly’s sympathy, or so she thinks. Molly’s right-hand man, Charlie, turns out to be a big-time masher, and he has a go at Mercy. Molly decides not to go after Charlie, though, because she doesn’t want to put her company in jeopardy, and Mercy takes matters into her own hands in a way Charlie isn’t going to forget anytime soon.
With one thing and another, though, Mercy gets closer to Molly. When some key information is revealed, there’s no hiding the shock and confusion. Sometimes that shock and confusion leads to literal screaming.
This is a deftly shot film, but not a slick one. Distorted angles effectively communicate the characters’ mental states and these are not star closeups. We see smeared makeup and tears. We see acne. We see disheveled hair. Mercy might be playing the part of a cutting-edge fashionista, but underneath she’s still the insecure peon who crumpled like tin foil when she got fired.
I liked that Mercy does have a few grounding influences in her life, namely her sister, Karen and Karen’s daughter, Lovely, who love Mercy unconditionally and remind her who she really is. When things get nutty, Karen pulls up the reins a bit and it gives everyone a break from the intrigue.
There’s also a lot that keeps us guessing. Mercy imagines what she wants to do so vividly that her fantasy seems real, but before we have time to be shocked, the film snaps back to reality. The film allows us to maybe hope that Mercy and Molly will somehow wind up friends, and wonder where the story will go from there. Only just as things seem to get good, the supposed motherly-daughterly dynamic becomes a sub-text, like when people say, “Bless your heart,” when they really mean something else.
What gets a wee bit scary is when Mercy’s fantasies and her reality start getting closer and closer and I found myself wondering which side of her would take over, such as when she stops just short of going full Lorena Bobbitt on Charlie. I forgot to mention that, didn’t I? Yep, she totally does.
Only just, though. Mercy leaves the dude in considerable pain, not that he doesn’t deserve it, but still..yikes.
Things get even crazier, believe it or not. Put it this way: During Act Three I said “That came out of left field,” to myself quite a few times. The last scene is a particular “What the heck?” moment followed by some confusing fourth-wall breaking and a seeming ascent into heaven or something. I can’t decide if this makes the movie weaker or what, but it’s unique, anyway.
Kathryn Bernado plays Mercy to the hilt, ably matched by Dolly De Leon as Mother Molly. These two are both superstars in the Philippines but seem pretty unknown outside of it, and to be honest, the rest of us didn’t know what we were missing. A Very Good Girl may just change all of that, even if some parts weirded me out a little.
A Very Good Girl is currently in select theaters. Not rated.
My grade: A-
Principal Cast: Kathryn Bernado, Dolly De Leon, Donna Cariaga, Chienna Filomeno, Jake Ejercito, Ana Abad Santos, Gillian Vicencio, Kaori Oinuma, Nour Hooshmand, Althea Ruedas, Natalia Guerrero, Angel Aquino, Devin Bonomo
Directed by Petersen Vargas.
Written by Marionne Dominique Mancol, Jonathan Albano and Daniel Saniana.