Love in the time of adulting
I have never seen a single JaDine movie before Never Not Love You, and thus have no point of comparison. However, for a mainstream romantic drama, Never Not Love You is refreshingly insightful and cohesive, its focus well-established. James Reid and Nadine Lustre speak and move like familiar people, against the eclectic glow of nighttime Makati.
Antoinette Jadaone has a knack for making strangers fall in love in unexpected places, and Never Not Love You is her most mature film to date. Jadaone isn't one to dwell on love triangles or other tropes of the genre, instead focusing on the root causes for relationship conflict. In this case, career satisfaction and emotional maturity are the culprits.
The meet-cute of graphic artist Gio (Reid) and corporate drone Joanne (Lustre) happens very early in the movie, at the tattoo parlor where Gio works. The two quickly get on each other's nerves, which mostly happens in Jadaone's films, and the film gets into high gear soon enough as necessity brings them closer together.
The character ironies are clear: Gio is carefree and overconfident, while Joanne, who wants to be promoted to brand manager at her firm is calculating and driven, segurista in local parlance. When the two fall in love with each other, logic and whatever philosophical ideas they hold dear get thrown out the window.
As soon as the film enters Act 2, where Gio and Joanne migrate to London for Gio's work, the honeymoon stage, or kilig phase dies down in favor of a discussion on career dynamics between a couple. The film gets a lot of things right: the element of compromise and career discontent as major factors that make or break a relationship in today's tech-driven world.
The wittiness of the dialogue adds charm to Gio and Joanne's journey, with Joanne sounding a lot like Jadaone in real life (most of her female characters often do). A particular character that I enjoyed was Gio's male coworker in London, who ended up giving him relationship advice. You're an asshole, he says. Even here, Jadaone is flipping the elements of romantic dramas.
The highly-talked about ending comes like a freight train, swift and unforgiving, and I liked how Jadaone presented the sequence. As with any relationship, surprises hide at corners, often arriving at the most unfortunate of times. And yes, the hardest of decisions often are the most difficult to fathom, the entirety of truth ever so elusive. Or we can blame everything on timing, that bastard of an absentee character that has loomed over the greatest of love stories, from Casablanca to In the Mood for Love.
* The review reflects the personal opinion of the writer and does not represent the collective take of the Society regarding the movie. Stills from Viva Entertainment.
