Die Beautiful is a remarkable movie about transexuals and their place in society. Throughout the film, Tricia (Paolo Ballesteros) kept trying to find real love after being shunned by her immediate family, led by her homophobic father (Joel Torre). The climax showed how the father tried claiming Tricia's body from the morgue, even if her friends are opposing it because Tricia did not want to be laid to rest with her former family. The father even wanted to hack off her boobs! Eventually, Tricia's sister Beth (Gladys Reyes) stepped in and let her brother's friends take the body home without the father's knowledge.
That was the last we've heard of Tricia's family, and so it seems like we haven't had a proper conclusion for that part of the story. There were also scenes in the film where Tricia's friends indicated that the funeral should be secret because the father may find them, so I was expecting that a confrontation will happen after the grandiose funeral became viral.
Now, a deleted scene is taking the rounds on Facebook, showing that there was supposed to be a confrontation in the script. Here's the deleted scene, showing that the father and Beth came to the funeral with cops behind them:
I agree with this cut because it won't work well with the mellow conclusion, since this would increase the intensity. But I still think we need a better conclusion for Joel Torre than just him disappearing at the end. So I thought up a good scene:
Have Gladys Reyes watch television alone in the same spot where she was watching Tricia's pageant earlier. She's watching a news story about Tricia's funeral. In the previous scene, she turned the TV off when Joel Torre walked in. This time, Joel Torre walks in but Gladys does not turn the TV off. Joel sits down beside her, looks at the TV. Looks at Gladys, Gladys does not look back. Then he looks back at the TV with no visible reaction. The camera lingers for a bit, with no dialogue exchanged between the two characters. Then it cuts to the next scene at the funeral for Barbs's final speech. (I was thinking something like acceptance dawns on Joel's face or Gladys holds his hand, but might be too cheesy.)
This is a good scene for several reasons:
- It is a parallel between the previous scene where Gladys is scared of showing Joel her acceptance for Tricia with her watching the pageant, to not caring that the homophobic dad sees her.
- It gives Joel a chance to conclude his story. We also show Tricia's family for one last time.
- It shows that the funeral has been truly viral because it made the news. I remember seeing a reporter in the funeral but we never actually saw a TV report.
- It finally give us a final scene where a TV is involved. There were a lot of scenes with television. I think there was a fascination with media, because of all the references to TV and movies in the jokes. It's a nice subtext.
I kinda wanna see this in the director's cut but I don't know how to reach direk Jun Lana. If you're reading this, kindly tell him, please?
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