Review of HELLO, LOVE, GOODBYE: Cherishing Choice

August 1, 2019

Joy worked as a domestic helper in Hong Kong. To augment her earnings, Joy also actively engaged in her buy-and-sell business every Sunday, and even took on a second job at night as a waitress. She desperately needed funds, not only to send back home, but also to finance her dream of flying off to Canada to practice nursing, her original course. When she met and fell in love with the charismatic bartender Ethan, Joy was faced with a critical choice whether to stay for love, or leave to follow her dreams. 

Kathryn Bernardo again worked with the same intensity of acting which won her the Best Actress award last year for "The Hows of Us" to portray Joy. Because of her extreme dedication to her family, Joy was a joyless person focused only on her fulfilling her dreams of bringing her family back together again. Even if she was in the company of her kooky fellow DH friends Joy barely smiled as a no-nonsense workaholic whose every minute of the day was spent in the pursuit of earning money.

I only knew Alden Richards before as the male half of the AlDub loveteam, where he really  did not do too much aside from looking cute. Richards as Ethan was actually deglamorized in a way he did not exactly look like the Alden of AlDub. Even then though, the camera loves his face so much that there wasn't any bad angles to him however simple his clothes or windswept his hair. Based on the screams his handsome closeups elicited among the ladies as he delivered his pick-up lines, he was doing very well in getting them thrilled and excited. 

Because Bernardo was always in serious heavy drama mode practically throughout the film, it was up to Richards to stir up the romance part of the equation. This movie was actually more of a vehicle for Richards to display his versatility in acting to a new set of Kapamilya fans who were not too familiar with him and his talents before. He was the one who lightened up the mood of the heavy scenes with his comic antics. On the other end, he was also very effective in those touching dramatic scenes with his family, as well as those scenes where Ethan was trying to convince Joy to stay in HK with him. 

Kakai Bautista, Lovely Abella and Maymay Entrata played Joy's funny friends, Sally, Gina and Mary Dale. Joross Gamboa and Jeffrey Tam played Ethan's funny friends Jhim and Carlo. Maricel Laxa-Pangilinan returns to the big screen as Joy's mother Lita, who worked as a DH in HK before Joy did, while William Lorenzo played her father Celso left back home. Lito Pimentel played Ethan's invalid father Mario, while Jameson Blake played his disillusioned younger brother Edward. Cantonese actress Pang Mei Sheung stole her scenes playing Mrs. Chung, a delightful grandmother with dementia Joy took care of. 

Travelling to Hong Kong may not exactly be the best idea now because of its current political turmoil, but this film reminded us why this was a favorite honeymoon destination care of the beautiful cinematography. As with other Filipino romcoms, the romantic musical soundtrack also set the proper mood of their scenes. Director Cathy Garcia-Molina is really a master on how to elicit romantic thrills between her stars. No matter how cheesy the lines may seem on paper, when you hear them spoken in the actual scene, they work. 

The title alone already pretty much gave us a gist of the story, but we stay on to enjoy the chemistry of Kathryn and Alden as a new romantic pairing, as well as to find out what Joy's final decision was going to be regarding her dilemma. However, the script also brought to life the various real problems OFWs experience in Hong Kong, especially with regards to sacrificing family unity and risking illegal activities for their dreams of material wealth. This was a movie tells us that tough choices need to be made, and these choices need to be respected in the name of love. 8/10.