In My Life

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Audience Member ...absolutely the first movie that brought me to extreme shedding of tears, sobbing 'til midnight, and puffing of my eyes the next day. and it's damn funny too, BTW. I have become a Vilmanian upon seeing this flick. The best!!! Rated 5/5 Stars •  Rated 5 out of 5 stars 01/14/23 Full Review Audience Member These days, it just isn’t enough to make a good movie with a great script and talented actors. One would think that the return of Vilma Santos to the big screen alone would be enough for most producers. Couple that with talented writers, and you’ve got pretty much everything you need for a great film. But today’s filmmaking environment tacks on another requirement to the local blockbuster formula: it needs to be filmed abroad. New York City fills that hole for In My Life, though it doesn’t really do much for it. Despite that, the movie turns out to be pretty decent, a testament to the talent on the screen and on the page. Shirley (Vilma Santos) is an aging librarian with issues about moving on. Her youngest daughter Dang is urging her to sell the family compound, but Shirley refuses. When Dang brings up that she may be taking her family abroad and leaving Shirley alone, Shirley decides to finally take up the offer of her only son Mark (Luis Manzano) and take a vacation in New York. There, she struggles to fit in and contemplates starting a new life. But with Mark busy all the time, it’s his boyfriend Noel (John Lloyd Cruz) who ends up taking care of Shirley; a difficult task given Shirley’s lack of adaptability. Noel gets torn between looking after Shirley, maintaining his relationship with Mark, and finding a way to stay in America legally. Shirley’s story is full of little surprises, facilitated by a bait-and-switch arc that starts out as a broad How Stella Got Her Groove Back kind of thing before becoming a really serious depiction of how the nobility of parenthood can be a double edged sword. The script takes a couple of tired shortcuts getting there, but the destination is actually worth seeing, if a little flimsily built. The problem with the story is that it doesn’t really justify its setting. New York City, of course, is a wonderful backdrop for practically any story, but here it serves more to provide narrative bloat. In creating subplots to facilitate the story being set in New York, the movie draws attention away from its already formidable core. The subplot regarding Noel’s citizenship is a real drag on the narrative, presenting a false choice and the movie’s sole flat characters. That it provides one of the moments of denouement feels a tad forced. I’m sure the story reflects something that actually happens, but it adds so little to the film’s overall milieu that it’s difficult to accept. But of course, this is the way things are now, the biggest productions in the country shot in some foreign land, in a twisted reflection of our country’s problems with brain drain. Taken on its own, it doesn’t hurt the narrative as much as it points to a much larger problem in our industry. Technically, the film is fine, if a little broad. The production leans a little too hard on easy clichés and an overbearing score, and the connection between several sequences is a little rough, but it mostly fits. There’s one scene that really sticks out as particularly badly done, but I can’t give it away for fear of spoilers. The film’s greatest asset isn’t difficult to pick out. Vilma Santos could read a shopping list and build a character out of it. She fills Shirley with lots of little details, offsetting the general broadness of the character. While she still goes a little too large at times, she finds little moments that bring her back down to Earth. John Lloyd Cruz has habits he keeps falling back on, but otherwise, he plays really well with Ms. Santos. The weak link in the cast is Luis Manzano, who thrives in the movie’s biggest moments, but fails to build anything consequential for the rest of it. I do think that the overall experience that In My Life provides is a pretty good one. There are a lot of clever moments made even better by great acting. There are clunky moments, to be sure, but it’s difficult to think about that when Vilma Santos is making magic on screen. But the question must still be asked: what is it about this story that necessitated New York City? One imagines that the same story could be done here, minus the film’s weakest subplot, while addressing the same themes of alienation and parental guilt. It’s a concern that falls mainly outside the bounds of cinema, but in tackling the larger problems of the industry, it’s something we cannot ignore. There are times in this film where the setting feels like a detriment, an added weight passed on to the filmmakers who are then forced to spin gold from straw. In My Life is good, but that’s in spite of its setting. Rated 3.5/5 Stars •  Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 01/14/23 Full Review Audience Member Galing ni Loyd at Luis Rated 3.5/5 Stars •  Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 02/20/23 Full Review Audience Member Good acting, interesting story about a sourly librarian slash mother, and that's about it. DOP kinda sucks, but it's still okay. Basta may John Lloyd, gusto ko na hahahaha. Scoring kinda annoys me too. Rated 3/5 Stars •  Rated 3 out of 5 stars 01/24/23 Full Review Audience Member Liked it, kinda original story, but Luis Manzano did not inherit his mother's acting talent. Rated 3/5 Stars •  Rated 3 out of 5 stars 02/14/23 Full Review Audience Member I worked really hard in this movie so I am giving it a good rating. Hehehe. Rated 4/5 Stars •  Rated 4 out of 5 stars 02/24/23 Full Review Read all reviews

In My Life

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