Is 365 days enough for someone to move on?
First of all, I give this movie a clap for Bela Padilla for being the woman on screen and behind the camera. It’s worth noting that she is a triple-threat actress. This movie shows how she brilliantly conveys all emotions with her acting and visual direction.The premise is not something that we haven’t seen in a romance genre movie before, but it's still something you can enjoy despite its clichés. The movie moves at a nice pace with two different tones. The first half is filled with the weightiness of grief and pain, letting the melancholy mood sink in immediately as the movie opens, which, in my opinion, managed to draw the audience in and invite them to stay in the emotional depths of the movie. The second half has a lighter mood and slowly turns into corny romantic plots, but the transition seems abrupt, and it alters the seriousness of the movie. The back-and-forth change in tonality slowly affected the story flow and the emotional rollercoaster this movie intended to give. It’s kind of a bummer to me. There are also some loose ends that detract from the overall quality of this movie.
Here are two aspects of why I think this movie deserve a 7. 1. The cinematography. The indie-like camera work boosted all sorts of emotions this movie has to offer: love, happiness, pain, loneliness, heartbreak, despair, and encouragement. 2. Acting. While the emotional rollercoaster is not crazy enough, the acting is what stood out the most. Bela did an excellent job portraying a bereaved lover, showing the genuine and realistic way that grief is expressed through character and narrative. Even though JC Santos is not the ML and he didn’t have many scenes he shared with Bela, this tandem still managed to show their good chemistry and make you feel the sweetness they were showing from their few scenes together.
The movie subtly makes the point that letting go and moving on are two different things. It also showcased the guilt in moving on. It’s okay to keep old memories without necessarily erasing them, but knowing when to let go is crucial to healing. Time heals everything, as the saying goes. However, a person's willingness to truly let go of the past and go on, no matter how painful it was, is what matters most.
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