The trailer is better than the actual movie.
Love The Way U Lie took a space (or spaces) on my IG stories the moment the trailer was released earlier this year. The trailer served its purpose in driving the hype leading up to the movie’s international release on Netflix yesterday. So I watched it as soon as I received a notification from Netflix.
So… how was it?
I did not enjoy it. The movie felt jumpy and awkward. Awkward in the sense that there’s no natural energy and chemistry on Stacey’s (Alex Gonzaga) character tree.
The dramatic premise between Stacey and her family is nothing but a sort of teleserye cliché. It was unnecessary so much so that her family issue was just settled with a scene where Stacey finally received ‘help’ from her siblings while cooking pancit canton. The family angle was just added for extra baggage and the sake of conversation. But everything about the family scene is just… awkward and not even Kim Molina could save it.
Xian Lim as Nathan did the best that he could despite the tasteless acting from his co-stars. At some point, he was still able to use his old charm in this movie, bringing his musicality and chinito spark as an extra point in every scene.
The pain point of the film perhaps lies in Alex Gonzaga’s performance as Stacey. I remember I applauded her performance in her 2019 MMMF Film “Mary, Marry Me” because there’s no “YouTube Alex” in the movie. Her character as Mary Ann was a strong best-supporting actress contender for MMFF. I guess the challenge with Alex is how to shift from her overly-exposed YouTube personality to her profession as a character actress. In LTWUL, there was no defining line between YouTube Alex and Stacey. I cringed on the hep, hep, hooray part and it was such a disservice to Xian’s career.
The movie positions itself as a cutesy, feel-good film. But the script felt dry. It’s like you’re flipping from page 10 then 20 then 30. I thought I missed something. I was just forced to believe that Stacey’s pain was valid and that their love story is worth rooting for. Nope. At some point, I felt like the characters were just overreacting. Why are they crying all of a sudden? Because Stacey lied? Why are they mad? It was just… bland. I guess LTWUL plucked a lot of story angles and character inspirations from several hit movies and they ended up tucking all those in one film. It was narrated in a very pajama-party manner.
Manila as the prime venue of the story is the only thing that’s cool about the movie. Especially in this pandemic situation, one of the best things that a movie can offer is to let our eyes travel.
All the nice things about the movie are present in the film’s trailer. And that’s just it.
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