IN FOCUS MOVIE REVIEWS
Ang Nawawala’s best lesson, in fact, is that any aggravated state can be assuaged with good music, not to mention, with the cathartic awkward dancing that is bound to follow.
Then, we get to the love story that had to happen, which is cute enough as a budding friendship, as a distraction for our hero, the classic little boy running from his ghosts. Gibson is gifted with Enid, who, on the surface, fits him well; while Gibson is lacking, Enid is in excess as a hipster go-getter, first, pulsating with the desire to bait the anti-ex, next, obsessing over her obscure Meiday costume. She is as grating as they come, referring of course to these over-enunciating, manic pixie dream girl types, but is thankfully redeemed to a degree by her realness, even if it is in an eerily similar vein to Zooey Deschanel’s Summer. We see this through her non-overness for her ex, Deacon, her shrugging off of the responsibility to fix Gibson, and her own general brokenness. Despite Enid’s subtle villainization, her characterization is easily more noteworthy than the other single trait-driven supporting characters, which span the taken-for-granted crass friend, the needlessly perverted big sister’s boyfriend, and even, for this viewer, Dawn Zulueta as the closed-off, coping mother. This is all understandable, because it is Gibson’s story after all. Still, it’s important to bear in mind that more texture will always make for better layers. Underneath the middle class twee, however, is a solid narrative space that endeavours to fill up what isn’t there for a person in crisis. Here, Gibson creates all kinds of physical and emotional filters to soften the blows of the real world. His most jarring attempts to assuage his guilt are manifested in the film’s quietest moments, where he shares
himself with his dead twin brother – smoking, jesting, kindling their kinship. Here, he is able to literally expel; here is where he becomes a whole, complex human being. Still, what isn’t there is the dirt that makes things closest to real. What comes at the cost of its ethereal sounds and visuals is that a kind off stiffness pervades all throughout, as if the actors themselves are aware of the inauthenticity of their scenes. And so, I elect to believe that the film’s wordless respites – the electric moments between Gibson and his twin brother – are real, they being one among the few realest moments of the film. I elect to believe that Gibson, despite putting his camera down in the midst of New Year’s fireworks, in the midst of finally reaching out to his mother, is still broken and will still struggle, but is making baby-step dents in his progress to look to what is there.
STACHE/ 27