It's easy to dismiss this movie as a cliche of love teams involved in a love triangle with one guy eventually getting the girl and the other getting a different girl and they all live happily ever after. And I wouldn't blame you because early on we're served with one-dimensional characters i.e. Popular Girl on Campus, Basketball Jock, and the Nerd that stalks the Popular Girl...but that's where the cliches end. It might be slow to build on you and there are some loopholes in the story here and there but once they get the ball rolling, that's when the fun starts and by the end you won't know what hit you.
When Norma is diagnosed with EHS (Electromagnetic Hypersensitivity), she needs to move away from the city and the boy she loves in order to recover. Nice way to go around the travelling-to-another-place-to-find-myself trap local movies are currently in because in her case she had to move to a remote place in Batangas (which is also Instagram-worthy, so if anyone knows where it is please share how to get there) in order to be away from Wifi signal which is actually true in certain parts of the country even though it's already 2018. She is visited by her boyfriend's brother as his proxy along with his lesbian friend Macha (who steals the show from time to time) and he keeps her company while at the same time quietly pining over her.
Starring Sue Ramirez, Markus Paterson and Jameson Blake, the first two I haven't seen from anywhere before but Jameson already has 2 Cool 2 B 4gotten under his belt so going in I knew at least he's someone to look forward to. Now while the characters pretty much ran by the numbers, it's what they did with it that brought additional life to the roles they played. I mean the parts could've easily been given to any of the bankable love teams nowadays but they could also easily overshadow the characters with how they usually act therefore we would've seen the actors acting, not the actors assuming the characters. Other noteworthy performances include Yayo Aguila as Norma's mom (#parentgoals) and Angellie Sanoy as Macha.
So why watch? Aside from the much talked about plot twist which is a kicker, there's something for everyone to go and see it. For the Baby Boomers and Gen X, there's a shoutout to their way of courting even before mobile phones and chat services were available. There's also the nostalgia of seeing relics from earlier times such as a typewriter, voice recorder and even a mailbox with actual letters in them. For the Millennials, it's a reminder that while living in today's fast-paced and online world allows us to stay connected with almost everyone, the quality of relationships are sacrificed because of the pressure to maintain and improve on the quantity: More Friends = More Likes = More Validation. This movie reminds us that One million followers in the virtual world is nothing compared to that One special someone in the real world.
