Honey (K Brosas) was a middle-aged single mother to her three children, Reese (Alwyn Uytingco), Toffee (Pio Balbuena) and Sweet (Elisse Joson). On her birthday, her children were shocked when she received a big bouquet of red roses. Pressed to confess, Honey revealed that she had met a Danish man Fritz Karlsen (Paul Lyderer) on a dating app and that he is inviting her to fly over to Denmark to visit him. Just to be sure, Sweet tagged along to accompany her mom to keep her from making a hasty decision.
This is another European romp by writer-director Veronica B. Velasco, after "Nuuk" (2019) and "A Faraway Land" (2021). Like before, she brought us to picturesque places, like the stately Lerchenborg House and the quaint colorful houses of Nyhavn, where Hans Christian Andersen used to live. This time, the issue she tackles was about Filipina widows meeting European men online with the possibility of getting married to them, and how this type of romantic arrangement affect their grown children.
The choice of K Brosas in the lead role of Honey was certainly an unexpected piece of casting. This of course meant that the film had to play to her forte, which is comedy of the comedy bar variety. However, the way the screenplay was written was not exactly funny. Those supposedly "funny" scenes of adult children displaying rude behavior putting their mother to shame are not funny at all, be it Toffee tipping the food table over at home or Sweet's disrespectful lack of any manners in Denmark.
Fortunately, K Brosas knew how to tone her usual strong personality to balance out the unlikable and over-the-top acting of the three young actors playing her children, which made first act of the film an unbearable chore to get through. The uncouth, immature behavior displayed by those bratty "kids" were very uncomfortable to watch because they were not kids anymore, but whining adults. As the film made a transition from comedy to suspense thriller, Sweet's boorish behavior was still just as annoying.
It is in the third act, that Velasco finally wielded her magic wand for melodrama. With the special participation of Anjo Ylanna as Honey's late husband Dindo, mother and daughter confront their own demons from their past to deal with the problems they faced today. Even if lowbrow slapstick comedy may not be her strong suit, this type of tearjerking drama is where Velasco really excels, with a nice scene to explain the seemingly incomplete title to boot. Brosas and Joson both step up their game without overdoing the waterworks. 5/10.
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