There are interactions that cannot be captured by Zoom meetings. I remember seeing my friends for the first time last year towards the tail end of October. They picked me up and we drove around while doing errands together. It was a simple evening, but there was an energy, a spontaneity, and a lightness. Our conversations could overlap without the awkward pauses and our physicality would speak for us when words failed. Moments like these were rarer and rarer because it seemed impossible to imagine that our country would ever get out of this mess.
Hello Stranger: The Movie seems to imagine that future for us.
The film takes off after the series ends and follows college students Xavier (Tony Labrusca) and Mico (JC Alcantara) as they are physically reunited in a writing camp for school. Forced to become roommates for the week, they confront their unresolved history and persistent feelings for one another. Who would’ve thought that ABS-CBN’s Valentine offering would be led by two boys falling in and out of love and friendship?
Navigating open spaces
Helming this cinematic first is director Dwein Baltazar, known for her exploration of loneliness and fear in her previous films — Mamay Umeng (2012), Gusto Kita With All My Hypothalamus (2018), and Oda Sa Wala (2018). The protagonists in her films are often imprisoned in their spaces and routines, desperately seeking to be seen and remembered, only to remain lonely and disconnected from the world. It is what captivated audience members who shared these spectres: Dwein’s stories articulated what they couldn’t and created spaces that didn’t exist for misfits like them.
Hello Stranger: The Movie still touches on these themes, but centers itself on the diametrically opposed values of courage and connection.
It openly acknowledges its context and its hazards – either through dialogue or the presence of characters with face masks and shields. The resort becomes a liminal space of self-discovery and rest, and the writing catalyzes this process towards emotional honesty.
Martika Ramirez Escobar and Maolen Fadul work together to create a vibrant visual landscape, composed of spaces and colorful characters that inhabit them, to reflect the freedom that the characters experience in the temporary paradise. Precaution is thrown out of the window and, in this reckless abandon, allows people to breathe and see smiles. It opens the characters up to take risks and to control their fates after long periods of inaction.
Rushing through
However, this recklessness does not always advance the narrative.
Peppered with small confrontations that end as quickly as they happen, the film leaves many of the later emotional scenes unearned. Too many fights started, too many tears shed exhaust the audience. The briskness in the unfolding and in the denouement may be deliberately reflective of the characters’ inner states and, in turn, our collective states as young adults: rushing through life because we feel like we are running out of time.
Still, it wastes excellent dramatic potential, especially from JC, whose wounds as Mico cut deep and bleed readily for the camera, and Tony, who is most effective when he acts anti-type and lets Xavier’s vulnerability slide naturally through his too-cool facade. Capturing the emotional fragility would have been easier had there been more room to breathe (no pun intended). In rushing towards neat resolutions, a common problem in commercial films in their attempt to pander to established audiences and fandoms, the script is written more like it was made for television.
Nonetheless, the cast charms their way past these obstacles. Standouts include Vivoree Esclito’s Kookai and Miguel Almendras’ Junjun, as they shift between the comedic and the emotional without losing the groundedness and effectiveness of their characterizations.
Onscreen, they are at ease, allowing audience members to simply sit back, listen, and laugh, and maybe even join in the comments section — a delightful discovery that approximates the communal nature of the cinematic experience, albeit unfiltered and anonymous.
Troubles with truth
The film foregrounds itself as an exploration of what truths are necessary for different relationships to survive. These paint a fear of loss that the pandemic has ingrained in us. In this examination of the romantic and platonic and what anchors them, the film creates a portrait of young adulthood and the trepidations that can only be solved outside the digital landscape. The process of self-discovery and self-proclamation becomes more complex and the film doesn’t give into the mistake of invalidating one character’s concern over the other.
When characters are either unaware or too afraid to speak, Glenn Barit’s music reveals their inner life for us and eases them through the emotional journey. The musical moments are poignant but also humorous: resulting in one of the best and most hilarious needle drops in Filipino romcom history. It’s an example of the best kinds of film music: one that can exist separate from the film for it tells its own story, yet is only as good as it is because it is inseparable from the story, acting as an inner monologue; the heartbeat unique to each situation and character.
So in Xavier and Mico’s final scene, as their classmates dance and mind their own businesses, the film leaves us with a final message in the form of a song:
“Kahit na ano’ng sabihin ng iba
Pangako ko sa ‘yo na walang mag-iiba
Wala, walang magdidikta sa nadarama
Kahit na ano’ng sabihin ng iba”
In a world where the pandemic is a distant memory, hopefully the only risk we’ll have to take is that of love. – Rappler.com
Hello Stranger: The Movie is available via ktx.ph beginning February 12
via PK
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