Diary ng Panget (Diary of an Ugly Person) is a film adapted from a best-selling novel

with the same title that was written and published first on Wattpad. For a Filipino romantic
comedy film, it isn’t surprising that it’s made to appeal to the mass. Hence, it’s no wonder why
its plot nor its theme is not much of anything ground-breaking but rather typical, yet very
appealing to the audience, to the youth especially, at the time of its release. It follows the story
of a poor and 'ugly' girl, Eya and her life as a transferee in a school dominated by elites and how
she becomes part of the life of an attractive, popular and rich boy named Cross by being his
personal maid. Their relationship starts with quarrels as Cross treats her like anyone in her
school does, or perhaps worse—making her suffer on purpose on different occasions such as
introducing her as his girlfriend in front of his obsessed admirers, teasing her for her looks that it
becomes so normal for him to address her as “panget!” and not by her actual name, and
insulting her for her socioeconomic status. Eya would also meet Chad and Lorry who are both
attractive and rich yet nice towards her, saving her many times in the story. Soon, Cross would
show Eya his vulnerable side and would confess that he’s developing affection towards her.
Eya, knowing that she has feelings for him too in spite of all the questionable things he caused
her, would say yes and become his girlfriend. It is easy for the filmmaker to make this
predictable plot exciting. It’s been seen in many projects like the Thai film, “Crazy Little Thing
Called Love” and the American book and film, The Duff (2015) but the challenge is to make the
film less flawed compared to the book and make it more realistic in the big screen. Truth be told,
the settings used in the film were good choices to achieve this somehow. First, the canteen
where Eya used to serve was a perfect choice to tell a lot about her without the typical
monologues used in the first chapter of a typical Wattpad story. It was a simple but a very busy
place, reflecting the simplicity yet somewhat not so comfortable life of Eya. On the other hand,
Cross’ mansion is huge which reflects his upper class status. However, most scenes would only
repeatedly show a portion of his house. Typically, it’s either just his bathroom, bedroom or
kitchen, reflecting how much of his side is yet to be seen in the film. It’s also noteworthy on how
the entire setup of the school successfully made Eya an outcast in spite of her being barely self-
conscious or insecure on how she looks. The school is full of varsity jocks like Chad, attractive
nonchalant boys like Cross and typical rich and fair-skinned mean girls. These settings weren’t
utilized at their utmost degree though. Many scenes in the film were unrealistic that made its
pace confusing. For instance, Eya and Lorry’s second encounter where Lorry saves Eya from
her bullies could’ve been the perfect choice as their first encounter since their actual first scene
together was rather awkward and unnecessary. James Reid’s performance as a bad boy is
effective yet the film highlighted his character’s meanness so much that it became questionable
how he won Eya’s heart quickly in spite of all the bad things he caused her. The film’s flow was
not completely predictable and it is for a bad reason. It felt like it needed a lot more scenes to
make its pace not too slow nor too fast. It’s true that we were given a glimpse of Cross’
vulnerability by mentioning his mother’s death but his kindness is barely shown. The one time
he offered his jacket and gave Eya a hug in a pouring rain wasn’t enough to show that “hidden”
part of him. They could’ve included scenes in a form of flashbacks to showcase a part of his
character that was missing in the entire film. How he would secretly show his kindness to Eya
was something the audience were teased and excited to see from the start. The same thing
goes when Lorry found out that her best friend is in a relationship with a guy she’s been loving
for years. She did not even have the time to show her frustration as she was presented to be
casual about it with Eya just a few days later that they arrived at the Grand Ball together.
Thankfully, the film score was able to fill in these gaps and cover up the holes to carry the
movie. The lack of opportunities to maximize the chemistry of the two main characters were
supplemented with soundtracks that completely set the mood of each scene, in spite of their
simple dialogues.