ALONE / TOGETHER
Year of Release: 2019
JR's Rating:
(8.7 out of 10, Satisfactory)
JR's Rating:
(8.7 out of 10, Satisfactory)
"Chasing Dreams and Accepting the Past"
There's a saying I crossed many days ago and it says "bad decisions make for good stories." This movie created the most out of that by making a so relatable story towards the two leads and eventually punching us with gut-wrenching realities we can't sometimes accept. Before judging the trailer for how cheating may be portrayed, it doesn't do that but instead choose to go how real the human emotions can be at it's most undeniably complex and crucial. That's basically what I loved about the movie. It's not about fixing mistakes but rather pushing forth through those dreams and also facing the past how it should be. Alone / Together shows the realistic nature of the modern-day relationships that are brushed with hopeful futures but in fact are doomed with unexpected failures. It's a feel good movie with monologues so heavy that once you leave the cinema you'll realize the importance of making decisions every day of our lives. While there may be a few flaws, Antoinette Jadaone presents yet another great movie that highlights how natural love can be as portrayed amazingly by Liza Soberano and also somewhat by Enrique Gil.
🚩🚩🚩SPOILERS AHEAD 🚩🚩🚩
Here are some important points I had on watching "Alone / Together":
✅ Antoinette Jadaone
- Antoinette Jadaone delivers the best of romance in this modern era of Filipino film-making. Alone / Together isn't different. The story is unique and the direction is again wonderful. She doesn't fail on creating movies that can relate to this age of cinema viewers. This movie resonates too much to the failed relationships and dreams to the many Filipino youth but still embarks them on lessons of hope and optimism.
✅ Liza Soberano
- I never anticipated Liza Soberano to be this damn good. Acting is superb and emotions are so encapturing. She is the powerhouse of this film. If I'll give a reason to watch this film other than the lessons it ought to imparts, it's probably the finest film Liza has done to date.
✅ The UP Culture
- Strong and enlightened are what makes the UP Iskolar so inspirational. That's basically why many youth of today envy them because aside from the quality education they earn, they also are trained to be full of nationalism and patriotism. I like how the film shows just that when we are engaged in the UP classroom setting. I also liked how we see the liberalism shown through the students' dress styles and lantern parade that are so characteristic of UP.
✅ The Sunken Garden
- Other than the aforementioned, The Sunken Garden was heavily utilized in this film. The choice of location already adds emotion to the dialogues between the two leads. The Sunken Garden is central between Christine and Raf because it's where much of their love story took place. The park is beautiful and is already empathetic to both the characters and the viewer.
✅ Heavy Monologues
- The monologues are just too heavy to handle especially when you will get struck by how real and engaging they are to the average millenial and to their love and relationships. I love how the film resonates to how ambitious this generation really is but also hits them with the difficult reality of acceptance. Both Christine and Raf have their own point-of-views which are equally right, relatable and also thought provoking that you just have to put yourself inside their shoes if you haven't really experienced any one of them. Their face-to-face in New York, just before they go back to Manila, is one you should definitely look forward to.
✅ Conflicting Emotions
- It doesn't help when we judge this film as a romanticization of cheating when in fact it isn't. Many will get hit by everything they see in this film that are just too realistic too handle. The relationship between Christine and Raf is prevalent nowadays and without such depiction loses the idea of love in this modern age. In fact, the movie loses it's sense when it doesn't go on how it was designed. I guess what makes it for me a commendable movie is this generation's desire for love stories that are existent and relatable just as how this film has done not just your unrealistic fairy tales with too much hope and happy endings.
✅ Open-Ended Ending
- We really don't know how Christine and Raf ends up as we see them looking at the famed Spoliarium in the end but it adds that sense of mystery. It was hopeful, yes, but it's more of a fulfilling ending to their problematic relationship. It's so feel good that despite everything bad that happened we just manage to forgive them both and hope for good tidings between them.
✅ Parallelism in Film
- Ever noticed how Christine's ending was already reflected on her current relationship with Greg. Well, if I would interpret that ending which is open for interpretation, it seems that Raf and his son replaced the positions of Greg and his daughter in the film. This method of parallelism was greatly utilized by Jadaone in this film that this one shook me the most.
✅ Emotional Music
- Adding up to how good the story and acting was was the film's use of the song's "214" and "Spoliarium". Both songs may not be new and are actually somewhat familiar but their incorporation in the film gave them new life and also an earworm for the days to come. I had the songs be downloaded for my own perusal because of this film.
✅ The Use of Arts
- I love how this film made use of arts as a focal point with the character of Christine. It's because of this that I hope to visit foreign museums in the future to see the arts of Van Gogh and Rembrandt. In fact, seeing Van Gogh's The Starry Night in this movie was an emotional one for me. I legitimately felt Christine's amazement on that scene.
✅ Sense of Nationalism
- "We must never forget", powerful words indeed. It might seem to be a propaganda especially with how apologetic a few Filipinos are (and also with our country's upcoming elections) but this movie emphasizes the deeper sense of nationalism and how it should be imparted to the modern-day Filipino. In particular, the speech done by a returning artist from abroad was another powerful one. She made mentioned about our country being the only one who would eventually appreciate us. The movie isn't just a romantic one but it also has a side that invites us to listen and understand some propaganda it wishes to impart.
⛔️ Enrique Gil
- There are times that I felt Liza Soberano overpowered Enrique Gil in the most crucial scenes when both of them should complement each other. One scene in particular I can't distinguish if Enrique's tears were real or just overly done in a breakup scene. Acting should come naturally, not forced, exagerrated or even "pacute" or "papogi." But still, some of his monologues are very strong in this film.
⛔️ Lack of UST
- Why would you advertise a film as a love story between a UST and UP student when all that is highlighted are more of the UP and not much of the UST. How I wished they also visited UST landmarks to equally highlight the two schools. Quality medical education and uniform wearing aren't just what makes UST that distinctive; there are many more they could have done on this film.
⛔️ Weak Breakup Ploy
- Don't get me wrong for this one but I find the reason for the breakup between the mains just too weak and not that all emotional for me. It was so speedy that I can't comprehend how heavy their conflict was. Maybe the idea of breaking up due to one's misfortunes is also prevalent in today's society, I find it's portrayal in this film not really climactic. Liza's acting, though, was a saving grace.
With 11 amazing reasons to watch and 3 reasons not to watch,
"Alone / Together" is an 8.7/10 for me.
#AloneTogether
#2019Movies #MovieReviews #JRMovieReviews
There's a saying I crossed many days ago and it says "bad decisions make for good stories." This movie created the most out of that by making a so relatable story towards the two leads and eventually punching us with gut-wrenching realities we can't sometimes accept. Before judging the trailer for how cheating may be portrayed, it doesn't do that but instead choose to go how real the human emotions can be at it's most undeniably complex and crucial. That's basically what I loved about the movie. It's not about fixing mistakes but rather pushing forth through those dreams and also facing the past how it should be. Alone / Together shows the realistic nature of the modern-day relationships that are brushed with hopeful futures but in fact are doomed with unexpected failures. It's a feel good movie with monologues so heavy that once you leave the cinema you'll realize the importance of making decisions every day of our lives. While there may be a few flaws, Antoinette Jadaone presents yet another great movie that highlights how natural love can be as portrayed amazingly by Liza Soberano and also somewhat by Enrique Gil.
🚩🚩🚩SPOILERS AHEAD 🚩🚩🚩
Here are some important points I had on watching "Alone / Together":
✅ Antoinette Jadaone
- Antoinette Jadaone delivers the best of romance in this modern era of Filipino film-making. Alone / Together isn't different. The story is unique and the direction is again wonderful. She doesn't fail on creating movies that can relate to this age of cinema viewers. This movie resonates too much to the failed relationships and dreams to the many Filipino youth but still embarks them on lessons of hope and optimism.
✅ Liza Soberano
- I never anticipated Liza Soberano to be this damn good. Acting is superb and emotions are so encapturing. She is the powerhouse of this film. If I'll give a reason to watch this film other than the lessons it ought to imparts, it's probably the finest film Liza has done to date.
✅ The UP Culture
- Strong and enlightened are what makes the UP Iskolar so inspirational. That's basically why many youth of today envy them because aside from the quality education they earn, they also are trained to be full of nationalism and patriotism. I like how the film shows just that when we are engaged in the UP classroom setting. I also liked how we see the liberalism shown through the students' dress styles and lantern parade that are so characteristic of UP.
✅ The Sunken Garden
- Other than the aforementioned, The Sunken Garden was heavily utilized in this film. The choice of location already adds emotion to the dialogues between the two leads. The Sunken Garden is central between Christine and Raf because it's where much of their love story took place. The park is beautiful and is already empathetic to both the characters and the viewer.
✅ Heavy Monologues
- The monologues are just too heavy to handle especially when you will get struck by how real and engaging they are to the average millenial and to their love and relationships. I love how the film resonates to how ambitious this generation really is but also hits them with the difficult reality of acceptance. Both Christine and Raf have their own point-of-views which are equally right, relatable and also thought provoking that you just have to put yourself inside their shoes if you haven't really experienced any one of them. Their face-to-face in New York, just before they go back to Manila, is one you should definitely look forward to.
✅ Conflicting Emotions
- It doesn't help when we judge this film as a romanticization of cheating when in fact it isn't. Many will get hit by everything they see in this film that are just too realistic too handle. The relationship between Christine and Raf is prevalent nowadays and without such depiction loses the idea of love in this modern age. In fact, the movie loses it's sense when it doesn't go on how it was designed. I guess what makes it for me a commendable movie is this generation's desire for love stories that are existent and relatable just as how this film has done not just your unrealistic fairy tales with too much hope and happy endings.
✅ Open-Ended Ending
- We really don't know how Christine and Raf ends up as we see them looking at the famed Spoliarium in the end but it adds that sense of mystery. It was hopeful, yes, but it's more of a fulfilling ending to their problematic relationship. It's so feel good that despite everything bad that happened we just manage to forgive them both and hope for good tidings between them.
✅ Parallelism in Film
- Ever noticed how Christine's ending was already reflected on her current relationship with Greg. Well, if I would interpret that ending which is open for interpretation, it seems that Raf and his son replaced the positions of Greg and his daughter in the film. This method of parallelism was greatly utilized by Jadaone in this film that this one shook me the most.
✅ Emotional Music
- Adding up to how good the story and acting was was the film's use of the song's "214" and "Spoliarium". Both songs may not be new and are actually somewhat familiar but their incorporation in the film gave them new life and also an earworm for the days to come. I had the songs be downloaded for my own perusal because of this film.
✅ The Use of Arts
- I love how this film made use of arts as a focal point with the character of Christine. It's because of this that I hope to visit foreign museums in the future to see the arts of Van Gogh and Rembrandt. In fact, seeing Van Gogh's The Starry Night in this movie was an emotional one for me. I legitimately felt Christine's amazement on that scene.
✅ Sense of Nationalism
- "We must never forget", powerful words indeed. It might seem to be a propaganda especially with how apologetic a few Filipinos are (and also with our country's upcoming elections) but this movie emphasizes the deeper sense of nationalism and how it should be imparted to the modern-day Filipino. In particular, the speech done by a returning artist from abroad was another powerful one. She made mentioned about our country being the only one who would eventually appreciate us. The movie isn't just a romantic one but it also has a side that invites us to listen and understand some propaganda it wishes to impart.
⛔️ Enrique Gil
- There are times that I felt Liza Soberano overpowered Enrique Gil in the most crucial scenes when both of them should complement each other. One scene in particular I can't distinguish if Enrique's tears were real or just overly done in a breakup scene. Acting should come naturally, not forced, exagerrated or even "pacute" or "papogi." But still, some of his monologues are very strong in this film.
⛔️ Lack of UST
- Why would you advertise a film as a love story between a UST and UP student when all that is highlighted are more of the UP and not much of the UST. How I wished they also visited UST landmarks to equally highlight the two schools. Quality medical education and uniform wearing aren't just what makes UST that distinctive; there are many more they could have done on this film.
⛔️ Weak Breakup Ploy
- Don't get me wrong for this one but I find the reason for the breakup between the mains just too weak and not that all emotional for me. It was so speedy that I can't comprehend how heavy their conflict was. Maybe the idea of breaking up due to one's misfortunes is also prevalent in today's society, I find it's portrayal in this film not really climactic. Liza's acting, though, was a saving grace.
With 11 amazing reasons to watch and 3 reasons not to watch,
"Alone / Together" is an 8.7/10 for me.
#AloneTogether
#2019Movies #MovieReviews #JRMovieReviews
Watched on 15 February 2019 at SM Manila.
Image Reference: Black Sheep (Facebook Page)
Time Published: 17 February 2019 (08:00 PM)
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