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Tag: MMFF

  • MMFF MOVIE REVIEW: Mainstream Magic: A Review of ‘My Future You’ 

    MMFF MOVIE REVIEW: Mainstream Magic: A Review of ‘My Future You’ 

    There’s something magical about director and screenwriter Crisanto B. Aquino’s ‘My Future You.’ It’s a film about the complexities of family but disguised as a magical romance story about a boy and a girl who are matched through a dating app despite their difference in time. There are elements here of the Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock film ‘Lake House’ or other films with similar conceits like ‘Frequency’ and the Korean supernatural thriller ‘The Call.’ But Aquino’s film is deeply rooted in its Filipino setting and characters and redefines our understanding of what defines a family through the perspective of the two leads.

    Lex (Seth Fedelin) and Karen (Francine Diaz) are both fresh out of college with their lives ready to be conquered. As they both watch a rare twin comet sighting in the night sky one evening, they suddenly receive a dating app on their phones and laptops and are instantly matched. They talk, they flirt, they connect. It comes to a point that they decide to meet each other in Manila at kilometer zero at Luneta Park. On the given time, Lex discovers that Karen isn’t there. He waits for three hours but she never arrives. The next morning, he gets an angry call from Karen who tells him that he stood her up. Soon, they discover that they both were there at the agreed date and time. What they did not expect was the revelation that they live 15 years apart from each other. Lex is from 2009 while Karen is from 2024.

    My Future You LB
    Image from Regal Entertainment Inc. FB

    Aquino masterfully handles the first 20 minutes of the film to set up Lex and Karen’s meet-cute and the bonding that happens over time. The whole first act makes us fall in love with these two young people – performed with such verve from Fedelin and Diaz – that you get caught up in the whole romance. As someone who knew nothing about the film coming in, I was suspicious but still taken by surprise by the magical twist of the time difference that forms the barrier to the couple coming together. What’s even more clever is that during this time, the film had already begun to lay the foundations of the real goal of the film, which is to push the two youths into reimagining their family structure.

    My Futute You 1

    Lex is an only child of senior parents in Cebu. They are wealthy and while he wants for nothing and is loved by both and his yaya, his past has left a missing piece in his heart. Karen, on the other hand, is unhappy that her parents have split up and that their mom had moved her and her younger brother to live with her new boyfriend. The 15 years difference between Karen and Lex means that both can help each other with their issues of their family.

    My Futute You 3

    The romance aspect of the film is easy. The two characters have fallen for each other and it’s believable by the way Aquino directs their interactions using split screens and shooting them with match cuts to show that they are completely in synch even if they are 15 years away from each other. Vanessa De Leon’s editing is precise and on the mark allowing the two to be in the same moment despite their distance. The music by Decky Jazer Margaja is just perfect as it sets the mood from romantic to drama when the scene calls for it. The family drama opens up organically within the romance story and surprisingly takes center stage and the whole second act of the film as they two learn some valuable lessons about love and family and happiness.

    My Futute You 2

    Diaz is absolutely charming and she has a screen presence that calls for your attention. There are moments when she can sometimes over dramatize a feeling but when she uses restraint, there’s magic there. With more experience, she has the makings of a star. Fedelin, on the other hand, is a natural actor. Everything he does feel spontaneous and unscripted. He has a warmth that translates through the screen and he can easily shift from comedy to serious drama when needed. The two are electric together. 

    My Futute You 1113

    The supporting cast of Bodjie Pascua, Peewee O’Hara, Christian Vasquez, and Almira Muhlach help make this world so believable and authentic despite its magical realism setting. There are no out of place dramatics. It’s just simple and natural performances that makes these characters come alive.

    ‘My Future You’ is a lovely mainstream movie that is filled with the magic of love and warmth. It’s a perfect movie for the MMFF that really fits in with the Christmas spirit and, more importantly, I love the way that it normalizes non-traditional family structures.

    My Rating:

    stars 4 5



    My Future You is now showing in cinemas. Check showtimes and buy your tickets here.

  • MOVIE REVIEW: Secrets, Lies, Confessions, and Revelations: a review about ‘About Us But Not About Us’

    There is a confidence in director and screenwriter Jun Lana’s ‘About Us But Not About Us’ that permeates through the whole film’s concept. I’ve heard people describe it as an exercise in “minimalist filmmaking,” of which they also state that it is done excellently. And while I agree that the film shows great craftsmanship in all aspects – direction, acting, cinematography, editing, sound and music – I have to disagree that it’s minimalist in nature. Sure, the whole movie is set in one location and primarily played out by two people having a conversation over lunch: it’s as minimalist as it can get for a full-length feature. But by going down to the bare minimum – a story of two people having a conversation – the film becomes maximalist in terms of the little details in both performance by the actors and how the plot unfolds through the dialogue.

    About Us But Not About Us Poster

    Romnick Sarmenta plays Eric, a teacher, who joins his student for lunch at a restaurant, played by Elijah Canlas. In the midst of the pandemic (the story seems set at the easing of an ECQ and there’s hardly anyone in the restaurant), everything looks innocent enough though something just isn’t right. While Eric seems like a caring older brother or maybe even paternal towards the student but should he be? Isn’t there some boundary that’s being crossed here?

    And throughout their conversation, all of this and so much more is unraveled. Yes, Eric is a 40-year old gay university instructor and was Lance’s teacher at some point. Their friendship was the cause of some disturbance at school and may or may not have had an effect on why Eric’s boyfriend for seventeen years, Marcus, may have killed himself.

    This conversation and where it leads (and it goes into some dark and twisted turns) becomes a playground for both Sarmenta and Canlas to do some brilliant acting work. And, despite ‘About Us But Not About Us’ being a two-man piece, it’s really a three character movie because Marcus is such an important character in this narrative. They talk about him so much that his specter is present in their conversation. It’s so present that there are two scenes wherein Sarmenta and Canlas both take on the role of Marcus as the other recounts an encounter with him. What is most amazing about these two flashback scenes is how both Sarmenta and Canlas evoke the same character but with shades of how Eric and Lance see Marcus. There’s so much range here and so much precision. Sarmenta’s Eric is well-intentioned. He believes he is a good person and, in the process of this conversation, is brought down to his most vulnerable and fragile and his inner desires are starting to surface but Sarmenta holds it in and just keeps it right behind the eyes for us to see. Canlas, on the other hand, has to work with subtext all throughout because his Lance is not all that he seems to be.

    This is when the film becomes maximalist because that camera is moving so diligently trying to capture all the little gestures and looks that shift and flow as the story unfolds. After every new revelation is brought to the surface, Eric or Lance adjust, their facial expressions betrays a sudden realisation or an opportunity for an attack – this movie is about the little details and how it makes these things fill up a movie theater screen with context – and you realise that this isn’t a friendly conversation. It’s a battleground.

    Lana and company manage to tackle so many different large themes – the power dynamics between students and teachers, the relationship troubles within queer couples, the secret lives of young queer men, and the power of eloquence and the written word – but encapsulates it all within one conversation in one restaurant. He takes a small, private, intimate moment and turns it into a cinematic feast as he accentuates the smallest details and enlarges its scope through the camera. It’s a magnificent feat.

    It’s an engaging 90 minutes, a thriller done completely in one conversation. Each revelation done through dialogue and its ramifications are felt by how fully the characters react to the discoveries. In a cinematic landscape that is plagued by too many big budget blockbusters, it’s so refreshing to see something so intimate and so personal turned enormous through the medium of film. 

    My Rating:

    5 stars - Don't Look Up review