Agnes was a mistress who wanted to break off from her man, but could not make herself do so. Leo was a lonely man who could not find his right partner in the world. Serendipity had it that the two of them would cross paths along the picturesque beachfront of the Sunset Paradise Resort, where they had both decided to have a temporary getaway from the stresses of their daily living. With the gregarious resort staff Lorena hovering around them, will Agnes and Leo hit it off as a couple?
Bayani Agbayani's Leo was supposedly reserved, yet shockingly direct. That first day he met Agnes, he brought up the matter of the size of Agnes' boyfriend's member. On their first date, he actually put a face towel into this underwear to simulate this organ that Agnes still longed for. This issue would eventually be a recurrent joke throughout the film, where all three main actors all mentioning the vulgar Filipino word for it. In one fleeting scene, we actually get a fleeting glimpse of this legendary organ (as shock value). Agbayani bravely played against type here, but he felt creepy in the way certain scenes were executed.
Gelli de Belen's Agnes, on the other hand, was pretty, stylish and seemed to have the world in front of her, yet here she was. wasting her life away as a married man's mistress. Her character was very badly written, with a lot of illogical actions and decisions. Why was she resting her head on Leo's shoulder at the concert? Why did she say she was checking out, even rolling out her suitcase, yet was shown staying one more day? What was her cruel, heartless, derisive fake laughter for? What did her "Godbless" followed by a hand shake signify that a scene like that had to be repeated two times?
DJ Chacha's Lorena was a nosy busybody. For a resort employee, she was inexplicably intrusive and did not know her place. Despite how natural her comedic style seemed to be over the radio, the naughty lines given for her to say were very awkward, uncalled for and quite embarrassing. Consequently her acting here was still very self-conscious and unnatural. Anyhow, she still managed to keep her winsome personality her fans loved her for, despite the forced, frankly unfunny, humor in her scenes.
Perla Bautista and Ronnie Lazaro had minor roles as the publisher and worker at the Bahaghari Publishing House, which published the works of Kiko Rivero. They used to be big back in the day when "komiks" were the rage, but now had floundering fortunes, with only Kiko's books keeping them afloat. The film's tribute to comics was charming, but I am not sure what its connection was to the totality of the story.
Edgar Allan Guzman provided his image (on the book cover) and his voice (as the initial narrator) for contemplative author Kiko Rivero. John Vic de Guzman played guitar and sang "Can This Be Love" at a beach concert and his number was shown in full. However, he never appeared again the rest of the film.
The title of this film is a ironic portmanteau of two Filipino words: "pansamantala" (meaning "temporary") and "matagal" (meaning "long-lasting"). In this film, this made-up word was also the title of the latest book by best-selling author Kiko Rivero, who was eloquent with words as he was also young and good-looking. This word was translated in the English subtitles as "temporary infinity" -- an oxymoron which may certainly sound poetic when heard, but is actually difficult to define in any context.
Does it refer to something that should have been temporary, but was lasting longer than it should because of procrastination? Does it refer to something that was supposed to last a long time, but turned out to be short-lived and temporary because of neglect? When the last chapter of Rivero's book was read out loud, "pansamantagal" was actually the very last word of the book. But honestly, i thought that final chapter was a bittersweet melange of Hallmark sentiments which sounded good as individual sentences, but taken together they did not convey a single clear solid message.
At its core, there was a sappy story of a budding romance. Writer-director decided to spark up it up to life using very raunchy jokes (this film was rated R-16!). This is a very risky move as the older female viewers who may be interested to watch a movie about a relationship between two middle-age single people may not exactly find the sexually-charged humor too amusing (or will they?). With its sentimental style of script, Writer-director Joven Tan may have intended to write it in a way which was supposed to come across as profound, but unfortunately, I did not appreciate it that way. 4/10.
totoo po ba yung book? i want to get one sana
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