‘When This is All Over’ brings us back to the start of the pandemic and the early days of the quarantine. It puts into focus one condominium and the disparity between the quarantine experience of both its wealthy residents and the working class folks who keep the building running. It harkens back to the time of people breaking protocols and their overall dismissive attitudes towards what appeared to be an inconvenience to what is depicted as their empty lives. In the middle of these two is The Guy, played by Juan Karlos, a resident but not entirely of the upper strata as its other inhabitants. He’s a drug dealer, trying to raise money so that he can leave the country to be with his mother in America, with her new family.
Director Kevin Mayuga doesn’t focus too much on the pandemic as it is merely the backdrop of The Guy’s obstacles to reuniting with his mom. He’s more involved with establishing the milieu of the upper class characters, whose point-of-view is that the pandemic is more of an annoyance that is stopping them from being able to party. The party scenes is where Mayuga gets to have fun, playing out each trip from weed to acid to shrooms in a way that totally warps the film’s world and highlights The Guy’s inability to face his reality.
While selling drugs to other residents in the same building, he discovers that one of the girls, Taylor (Chaye Mogg), has connections to the embassy and can fast track his visa application. He tries to impress her by suggesting a place where they can hold a party, something which Taylor is missing so much. The Guy found a route to the building’s rooftop while looking for a place to smoke and there he meets and befriends Rosemarie (Jorrybell Agoto), an admin staff, who also uses the rooftop to get some air and find some space.
For The Guy to deliver on his promise, he has to trick Rosemarie and get the keys to the rooftop so that Taylor and her friends can hold their party and relive their wild drunken lives as an escape from the pandemic.
Mayuga manages the balancing act between upper class frivolities and working class anxieties rather well. While Taylor and her friends (played by Noor Hooshmand, Renee Dominique, and Aaron Maniego) are obnoxious and wholly immoral at a hyper-real level, it works because Mayuga plays off the tone of his film like an urban fable. In opposition, he presents Rosemarie and the rest of the building staff (which includes Lottie Bie and Zara Loayan) as grounded and real. Juan Karlos, as The Guy, manages to shift and transform depending on who he is with with such ease that it shows off his great versatility and charm. He’s the fulcrum that makes this whole movie work. The Guy is not a bad guy, he’s just desperate to be with his mom, his loneliness and inability to really take care of himself is evident in many scenes in act one. We don’t approve of what he does but we understand where he is coming from.
It’s what really makes ‘When This Is All Over’ work. The story is simple and can even be predictable but it’s done with so much care and earnestness that it carries through. Sure, Taylor and her friends are made to be despicable people (though Dominique’s Nicole manages to show layers and nuance in both the writing and performance of the character) but Mayuga still manages to treat them with love and care. The dialogue, the sensibilities, the attitudes are all coming from an authentic place. It’s not meant to ridicule them but show their darkest side of that class. And by not going to deep among the working class characters, he keeps them from becoming romanticized and allows them to be human. Filtered through the point-of-view of The Guy, the horrible things he does to them just to appease the rich folk and get his visa becomes even more cruel and inhumane and the life lessons he will come to learn by the third act becomes earned.
While the film has so much heart and has quite a great number of comic moments that lands their jokes, ‘When This Is All Over’ suffers from a lack of urgency or energy. It is as if the stillness of the pandemic has seeped into the pacing of the film and everything just seems to move one step at a time rather than at a frenetic speed, which the story sort of calls for: the energy of the party scenes, the caper that transpires for the secret rave, or the confrontation scenes at the end. The film never really hits peaks when it can except for one pivotal moment that is a trippy animated moment of self-realisation that’s wonderfully done and excellently timed for the narrative. It excuses the lack of urgency from the rest of the movie.
Great performances and a wonderful beating heart right underneath, ‘When This Is All Over’ is a joy to watch and an interesting reminder of what we went through during the pandemic and how it changed us, for better or worse.
My Rating:
This year, don’t miss Cinemalaya Bente: Loob, Lalim, Lakas happening from August 2-11, 2024! Witness another stellar lineup of Filipino stories that will move you and showcase the brilliance of Philippine cinema. Follow the Cultural Center of the Philippines and Cinemalaya for updates!
