| Netflix has very few family-friendly foreign films, and for that reason The Entitled deserves its spot on the platform. The humour is immature but pre-teens should find it very enjoyable. Like a Filipino version of What a Girl Wants, Belinda (Alex Gonzaga) is reunited with her long-lost father who is a rich business mogul and she then joins the ranks of the super wealthy and privileged. | | 2022
Directed by: Theodore Boborol
Screenplay by: Alex Gonzaga, Theodore Boborol, Noreen Capili
Starring: Alex Gonzaga, JC De Vera
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It’s a comedy about Belinda’s inappropriateness, jokes are on the childish side but also fun for a lot of ages. Belinda is more uncouth than unmannered. She’s from a poor town and will wash her own clothes in the bathtub and prepare her own food, and when she attempts to do the same in front of her new rich family, they look at her like she’s insane. She’ll hang out with the servants, and of course the good people will see that those are her good traits. The rest are rich petty jealous people.
The “good” people include Jacob (JC de Vera), a lawyer for Belinda’s father who was tasked with finding her and introducing her to the company (Belinda is being groomed to take over one of her father’s hotels). Jacob is of course conveniently very hot and the same age as Belinda and is completely oblivious to all the girls throwing themselves at him.
The plot is very predictable and is a story told and re-told a thousand times – a rags to riches comedy turned romantic comedy with some drama to elevate the emotional connection. There’s also a reason this story is so commonplace – it works. It’s simple and funny and cute. It’s a universal comedy, very mainstream in its presentation, relatively high budget, and would be perfect in introducing Western kids to a foreign film.
The Entitled is a very easy to understand film, no big cultural gaps, and the characters speak in both English and Filipino. The two main actors Alex Gonzaga and JC de Vera handle the comedy really well and have good romantic chemistry. For the right audience this is a very fun and enjoyable watch.
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