"MASIKIP SA DIBDIB" FUNNY MOVIE WITH SERIOUS THEME

ONE thing Director Joyce Bernal makes sure when she accepts a project is that she must like her actors. That way, she is able to work comfortably with them and exact from them their best for the movie project. Such is the case with unstoppable comedienne Rufa Mae Quinto, who's reunited with Bb. Bernal (that's how she opts to be addressed when directing a movie she likes) in Viva Films' "Masikip sa Dibdib." Bernal it was who first directed Rufa Mae in her blockbuster debut, the full-length comedy picture "Booba," also for Viva Films.

"Masikip" is the second collaboration of Direk Joyce and Rufa Mae, although the comic has appeared in past Regine Velasquez starrers directed by Bernal.

"Rufa is a friend from way back, when I was still a film editor," Direk Joyce reveals. "It's a breeze working with her. She does anything and everything you ask her to do and she has no qualms about them... no qualms about her boobs, no qualms about her body, no qualms about everything."

If she was made to strip naked for "Booba" to create what Bernal calls "saturated comedy," Rufa Mae will do nothing of the sort in "Masikip." Direk Joyce did not see the need for it this time around, although Rufa's character, Bobita Rose, is a take off from "Booba's," a pretty and well-endowed gal who is not so smart.

"Reality is so big in this movie but Rufa Mae's problems are exaggerated. These make it funny. The characters are weird without trying to be weird," the director explains.

Long missed on the silver screen, Rufa Mae elicits unabated laughter in "Masikip sa Dibdib," as the breadwinner in a dysfunctional family. On her tired, weary shoulders depend the lives of her drug-dependent mother (Gina Pareño) and siblings sired by her gigolo of a father (Bernard Bonnin) with different women: Boggs (John Lapus), a drug addict and incurable womanizer (now that's something different); alcoholic and suicidal Brigette (Sunshine Dizon); and Boggie (Phytos Kyriaco), the mysterious brother who is given to deep thinking. Bobita works herself to death, to give a good life for her family. Not only is her predicament backbreaking but also heartbreaking. In "Masikip sa Dibdib," Direk Joyce capitalizes on stark reality to chum our laughter.

"It's acquired taste. Kailangan matikman mo at masarapan ka!" describes the director of the humor in the movie.

The movie also stars Antonio Aquitania as Bobita's avid suitor and childhood friend and Swarding as her grandfather well on his way to second childhood. Rufa Mae's real-life sweetheart, hard court hero Rudy Hatfield, stars as Bobita's two-timing boyfriend. Viva insiders say he agreed to appear in the movie for a pittance. For the love of Rufa Mae, of course.