December 7, 2023
An elderly husband (Ronaldo Valdez) was becoming concerned that his wife (Boots Anson-Roa) had been acting oddly recently. One day, she claimed to have bought goods in the market but had nothing in her hand. One night, she woke up suddenly in the middle of the night and began angrily throwing things at him. He brought her to see their family doctor (Madeleine Nicolas), who diagnosed her to have early-onset Alzheimer's Disease.
PR manager Marga (Rhian Ramos) wanted to file a divorce from her long-estranged architect husband Anton (Paolo Contis) whom she had married the US. When she met Anton to have him sign the documents, he announced that he was terminally ill and only had a couple of months to live. As a final favor, he asked if she would go with for one last vacation. After discussing this with their common friend Rhea (Andrew Gan), Marga agreed.
Pre-teen kids Miggy (James Ignacio) and Tin-tin (Fatima Mislang) met at summer camp, and became instant friends. Their closeness annoyed bully kid Roy (Cloud Ugayan), who also had a crush on Tin-tin. During the nights, the two kids would sneak out of camp and hide behind a big rock, sitting together while admiring the night sky. One time, Roy caught Miggy and Tin-tin in a moment of puppy love sweetness, and told on them to the camp master.
Director Rechie del Carmen and writers Lawrence Nicodemus and Charrie Avendano all had more experience on television series, so the quality of the storytelling of the individual stories rather felt like it was for television. However, they tried to connect each of these stories with one other to create one whole tapestry of a story. They were careful in slowly revealing little clues, so as not to spoil the connection prematurely. This innovative effort to integrate raised the overall level of the film, but I wished the title could have been less generic.
They could have been more careful with some details. Anson-Roa is obviously already well into her 70s, why call her condition "early-onset" Alzheimer's, which is applied to patients less than 65 years old? Why was there a need for that very long phone call of Anton's boss telling him how important his current project was, when in the next scene, he would invite Marga for an out-of-town trip leaving ASAP? How could Miggy and Tin-tin lose their way in the morning, when they can easily find their secret spot in the dark of midnight?
As it had already been tackled repeatedly from "Tanging Yaman" (2000) to "Litrato" (2023), I wish stories involving elderly characters would have other plots aside from Alzheimer's. That said, Anson-Roa and Valdez both give moving, tear-jerking performances, as expected from them. Ramos and Contis do their melodramatic best with the wishy-washy script they're given here. The segment involving the children was most unpredictable, and can be uncomfortable with their daring escapades. Child actors Ignacio and Mislang were cute together. 6/10.
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