Film Review by : Baek, Jin Wook
Alone Together starred by Liza Soberano (Christine) and Enrique Gil (Raf), surpassing the P200-million mark as of February 21, and it is on its great move in the Philippine box office. I had a chance to watch another Philippine Movie this time and expected high since the last film “The Girl In the Orange Dress” was a nice movie, and this time I knew the actors in the film which made my expectation more high.
College couple Christine and Ralf calling each other “mahal” promised to marry in the future with having their own dreams achieved, Christine as museum diretor and Raf as a doctor (Wish by Christine). However when Christine felt and experienced massive failure in her life and career, Christine refuses to meet Raf and eventually they broke up.
The Scene moves on to Five years after at a rewarding forum where Christine and Raf met each other with having their own partner of life. Christine was living a totally different life, living with a man who saved her life (paid her debt). However, Raf became a doctor and was successful, living a life which seemed to make Christine proud of him. They set a time to meet each other at a particular bench where it contains memories of each other. Christine and Raf talks about the incident happened to Christine 5 years ago. The film goes on, Christine having a hard time in choosing between reality and her dream together with unexpected love again with Raf.
The plot of the film was quiet enjoyable. It showed the reality of life after graduation and it contained no single exaggeration about it. However, I found some awkwardness in the whole story itself. As the film jumps between past and present time, it somehow lacked detailed information like: Raf’s past life until now. It seemed like the film itself talks about Christine’s life alone. Also some part of the scene such as Raf talks to christine that his girlfriend has a baby, it was so awkward to create a certain circumstance of love in such a sudden. Still, it was nice that the film tackled about the reality of art industry here in the Philippines and talked to the audience with the theme of “dream”. It did not only show about love but I felt it was more about life & reality.
Talking about Cinematography, the angles, movement, acting and everything was nice and well built except one thing which is the fashion coordinator in the film. What I mean by fashion coordinator is especially with the stylist of Enrique Gil (Raf). Specifically going back to the scene of New York, the film showed the aesthetic atmosphere about the place and it connected well with the dream of Christine. New York became the turning point of Christine to live her a real life. However, with all those important things and meaning, the way how Raf was dressed up was a total mess. Christine was dressed well and it went well with the atmosphere of New York but Raf, seemed like he just don’t like winter. It neither matched with Christine nor the background. Here is where I felt the importance of clothing/ dress (as cinematography). On the other hand, Christine wore kind of dark color when she was living an unsatisfying life and kind of bright color when she gained happiness again in her life and during the college life (where she had full of ambition in life) which the clothing/dress gave small but strong role in the film.
Speaking to the audience about to find and pursue your dream which is ignored by the reality gave me time to think of my life, dream and goal. Overall, with good theme and story itself, however, gave me some disappointment in particular scenes, I would rate this film as 2.5/5.
collision of ideas 