Forever and a Day

♣♣♣♣/♣♣♣♣♣

Obsessed with success, Euge (Sam Milby) does not take it lightly when he “loses” some battles in his personal and professional life. Frustrated, he invites his best friends (Lui Villaruz & Matet de Leon) to a vacation in an adventure park in Bukidnon, where he meets Raffy (KC Concepcion), a girl reluctant to just let all her fears go away  and enjoy life. They eventually fall in love. Later, Raffy reveals that she has level 4 lymphoma and her days are numbered. Can Euge love a person who is bound to leave him after all?

I gave this one four clovers because movies with themes like death and living one’s life to the fullest really appeal to me somehow. I also like how the movie somehow grounds itself more to reality by steering away from the usual happy ever after and opting for scenarios that would more likely be the case in real life. Dante Rivero’s character summarizes it well with his short line: “You can’t win it all.” I find this quite amusing since he always seems to be the actor to say aloud onscreen whatever moral lesson the film crew is trying convey.

There is nothing wrong with KC’s acting in this movie. I would even go as far as to say that it is one of her best performances to date. However, her problem lies with her reputation as a buzz kill, which immediately kills her chances of getting unbiased reviews for her performance. It is a bit unfair, but I guess she really needs a very good role for people to like her better as an actress. Sam Milby shines here, his acting is greatly improving. I honestly thought that he would go back to being a ham actor after his brilliant performance in the indie film Third World Happy. Well, I was wrong. He seems to be well on his way to honing his acting prowess.

The support cast is also worthy of recognition. This time, the roles of the barkada members who have nothing better to do in their lives (other than comment on the life of the protagonist, a typical Cathy Garcia-Molina trademark), have been reduced to two. The other family members are not given a lot of screen time, which leads the story to focus on the love story between the two leads.

Is this a co-prod with the Department of Tourism? CDO is heavily marketed here as the backdrop for the two leads’ romantic affair. The Dahilayan Adventure Park is located in Bukidnon, by the way, although a lot of people usually put both places in just one itinerary. Anyway, this is really good for local tourism. So, there!