Expat Edward (Luke Selby) and nurse Ria (Kat Dovey) had been married for three years already. Edward already had a son Pippa (Lucas Matthey Francia) whom he left behind with his parents (Lee O'Brian and Kathy Mulville) back in England. Edward and Ria were very active with their sex life, but they do not have their own child yet. To add more spice, they contacted a girl Candice (Andrea Garcia) from the internet for a threesome experience.
In the neighboring condo, there lived a drug pusher Andrew (Nico Locco) who ran his illegal business with his pals (Sahil Khan and Michael Olusegon). This Andrew was a sex pervert who used binoculars and telescopes to look into condo windows and spy on people engaging in sexual activities. When he peeped on Edward and Ria for a number of times, Andrew developed an obsession with Ria, and devised a way to hook up with her.
This film was supposed to be set on the day before the COVID-19 lockdown on March 17, 2023. Despite this, Edward and Ria still called a maid (Nina Castinlag) to clean up the condo, hired a repairman (Chadd Solano) to fix the air conditioner, and entertained guests including Edward's family and Ria's aunt (Regine Tolentino). No one wore masks at all, nor were they wearing bunny suits in Ria's hospital, unlike what was actually happened those days.
As the story went on, one wonders why writer Reynold Giba made the pandemic the setting of the film in the first place. In fact, after their guests left, Edward and Ria had enough time to engage with a couple of threesomes, first with Candice, and then with Andrew, a total stranger to them who just so happened to be in their elevator. This story could have happened anytime. The pandemic never really mattered in the plot literally, nor even symbolically.
To fill up the running time between the sex scenes, much time was spent on resource people being interviewed on TV, like a pastor (Rene Durian) about the spiritual aspect of the pandemic, and a psychiatrist (Apollo Abraham) discussing about the six different kinds of relationships. I suspect many viewers would just fast-forward through these long didactic scenes of random topics only tangentially related to the plot.
Kat Dovey and Luke Selby acted their dramatic parts quite well, much improved from their previous outings on Vivamax. Auteur Brillante Mendoza continues his latest trend of overseeing the projects of new directors. The direction of Jao Elamparo was commendable in the technical aspects related to the camera work of DP Freidric Macapagal Cortez and the musical score of Jake Abella. However, in telling the story, Elamparo was not clear with his point, conversation topics were coming out of nowhere and led nowhere. 6/10.
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