When I write a review, I always make a distinction between the words “film" and “movie." A film is a work of art, while a movie is a commercial enterprise.
I’ll Be There is a movie, a simple and passable one starring showbiz royalty KC Concepcion. It is directed by Maryo J. delos Reyes and produced by Star Cinema. KC’s character Maxi/Mina is an aspiring Fil-Am fashion designer in New York. A rich fellow Fil-Am is financing her boutique. While they are constructing the boutique her boyfriend breaks up with her and runs away with the money. KC remembers her father in the Philippines whom she has not seen in 15 years. Her mother had died from cancer a year earlier, and she decides to go home to collect her inheritance of her mother’s part of the conjugal property so that she can replace her lost money. She goes home and meets her father (Gabby Concepcion), who is very excited to see her. Here are my preliminary questions: Why did Maxi did not report to the police that her ex-boyfriend stole her money? After all she is in America, where the rule of law is very much observed. And why is she punishing her father for the wrong reasons? I mean, her father may be at fault for abandoning her when she was still a child, but now that she is all grown up and she makes the wrong choice of a boyfriend, why force her father to replace the amount stolen from her? Maxi goes home to her parents’ farm in the province. She waits for her father to raise four million pesos for her. Her father’s only condition is for her to stay in his house for a month. And it is a beautiful house! My dream house actually: lots of windows, Mediterranean colors, Balinese interiors, and of course, the bougainvilleas and the immaculate swimming pool. A miracle happens, just like in all the other feel-good movies. As the old adage says, “love will conquer everything, love will triumph in the end," and so the daughter forgives the father. Of course, the handsome and winsome architect who is the godson of her father is there to make things perfect for Maxi. KC is very beautiful in this movie, so it is understandable that Jericho Rosales was hired to play her love interest. But the problem is, Jericho is an excellent actor and so his token role as KC’s kinakapatid and later boyfriend is so simple that at times Jericho looks lost. As a veteran of challenging roles (in Santa Santita for one), he appears uncomfortable to just look cute in a movie. His role is not big and complicated enough that he might as well be one of those roosters in the movie.
Losing the American dream What I like about the movie is its subtle anti-American dream sentiments. Maxi failed in her American dream—to be a fashion designer in one of the world’s fashion capitals, New York City. In fact, Maxi and her mother had a hard time in the United States. At a young age Maxi had to do menial jobs in order to help her mother defray their expenses. Meanwhile, her father Poch before her also did not make it in New York so he had to leave her and her mother and go back to the Philippines to manage their farm and distillery, becoming successful in the process. That is why I was so happy with the ending when Maxi, and now Mina in the Philippines, went home for good and even put up her own boutique in Manila. Mina is still lucky she has a loving father to go home to. Unlike many Filipinos in America, who in the words of the great Bienvenido N. Santos (who wrote Philippine literary masterpieces like “Scent of Apples," “The Day the Dancers Came," The Man Who Thought He Looked Like Robert Taylor, and What the Hell for I Left My Heart in San Francisco), “are riding the slowest boat home" in their minds for no one and nothing is waiting for them in the good old country, the Philippines. KC and Gabby should be commended for their very good performances. There is no doubt that KC can act. Their beautiful faces and competent acting served as antidote to the slow pacing of the movie which borders on being boring. However, I’m a little bit bothered that their life story is exploited in the movie. It is like washing their dirty linen in public.
Film royalty Being a Sharonian since high school, I believe that KC Concepcion is part of royalty in Philippine showbiz. After all I believe that Sharon Cuneta is the all-time Queen of Philippine Movies. She is a star who is a lot bigger than Susan Roces, Nora Aunor, Vilma Santos, and Judy Ann Santos. When I say “big" I am definitely not referring here to body weight or waistline! I am speaking here about measurable achievements like a string of box-office hits and award-winning films and performances, as well as product endorsements, long-running television shows, and a profitable singing career. Thus, the point I am driving here is that KC should not make movies but films. She is not one of those stars who had to join reality TV shows and talent search contests in order to enter the showbiz industry. Many of these newly discovered talents are forced to do silly movies as soon as they win the contest because the producers are taking advantage of the splendor of their 15-minute fame, striking while the iron is still hot, so to speak. Then later on, when their status as a novelty item is no longer economically viable and they still want to be in showbiz, they are forced to shed off their clothes in a soft-porn movie and their brainless spin doctors would call this the “maturity phase" in a starlet’s life. There is no need for KC to do silly things on screen, just like in her first movie where the director’s idea (or non-idea) of what is funny is to make her fart in front of the camera. That was very unbecoming of a princess! KC does not need to rush an acting project and appear in a movie with a defective plot and unbelievable situations, as in the case of her second movie. And ultimately, KC does not need to exploit her own emotions and childhood trauma in order to churn out a movie that will become a box-office success, unless that was recommended by a psychiatrist as therapy for father and daughter. As certified royalty in the Philippine movie industry, box-office success should not be KC’s motivation for doing a project. Her main objective as an actress should be to become an artist. She must only do films with directors that have real talent in filmmaking as an art. She must never do a movie again with those “blockbuster" directors, even if that director’s surname is Bernal, for it will only make the one named Ishmael turn in his grave. The commoners in showbiz would die for a box-office success, for the simple reason that their staying power in the business depends on it. This will never be a problem for KC. Her first two movies were not box-office hits, but she is still in the industry for the simple reason that she is Sharon Cuneta’s daughter. The commoners need money but KC will inherit a big fortune from her megastar mother, so why waste time and energy in making mediocre movies? KC must never forget that she has the genes and the talent to make it as an artist in Philippine films. After all, her father and mother, in addition to being box-office stars, are also very good actors. –
YA, GMANews.TV 
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