What causes a relationship to end? While many a time the cause is easily identifiable, sometimes the reasons lurk beneath the surface, imperceptible to both parties until it is too late. These reasons are shaped not only by the couple themselves, but sometimes by forces larger than either one and out of their control.
When Harold (Paulo Avelino) and AM (Janine Gutierrez) meet again at a friend's wedding, it feels like the both of them have a lot of baggage to unpack. Certainly, their lives have changed since their last meeting. It's obvious that something happened in the past between them, and the film flashes back to tell us why.
The film then intercuts between present day and the couple's college days, when AM and Harold were the best of friends. They obviously have burgeoning feelings for each other, but as per romantic movie tradition, they have difficulty communicating these feelings. The two lead actors express this clearly, and the chemistry between the two actors feels very natural. There is a certain messy quality to how these flashbacks are intercut, as if these memories are struggling to come out after being hidden for so long, images appearing, scattershot, like flashes of lightning in a dark sky.
On one level, the two friends live in completely different worlds; early on in the film, Harold is teased by friends about how his new friend circle speak in a different way compared to them. He has his own personal problems, and aside from his own romantic feelings, he struggles to communicate those personal problems to AM as well. Perhaps the only thing they have in common (aside from their hidden mutual feelings) is their shared dreams, though the end of the film puts that in doubt. In AM, we see a passionate woman with the means to act them out - she obviously comes from a well to do family who wants her to pursue a career path that she doesn't want.
But AM's weakness - and what partially causes the relationship to fall apart - is her own privilege. It creates a blind spot that she cannot fully perceive, representing ideas she cannot fully grasp. She is in the unique position to live her dreams and she has the resources to pursue something else when those dreams fail. Harold does not, and AM cannot understand those differences. In certain forms, idealism is a privilege to those who have the means. For those who live hand to mouth every single day, dreams stay as they are.
It's a question that's been asked before, notably in films like Irene Villamor's Sid & Aya (2018) and Antoinette Jadaone's Never Not Love You (2018), and director Prime Cruz and writer Jen Chuaunsu make their own spin on the subject. Aside from that, however, is something else: a deep yearning for a life that no longer exists, where living life was simpler and idealism still had sway over our lives. The film repeatedly considers the possibility of alternate paths, what-ifs that would have made Harold and AM's lives far different than they are now. But they (and by extension, we) do not have the liberty to redo things; our choices in the moment make us who we are, for better or worse. This nostalgia manifests itself in many ways: even the title ("how about now?" is a question thinking about these alternate realities and the promise of changing things for the better. This sense of nostalgia is embodied (at least for me) most noticeably in one of the featured songs in the film, Mayonnaise's song Jopay:
Dadalhin kita sa aming bahay'Di tayo mag-aawayAalis tayo sa tunay na mundoDadalhin kita sa aming bahay'Di tayo mag-aawayAalis tayo sa tunay na mundoSa tunay na mundo
The song, a single from their self-titled 2004 album, is about someone thinking exactly of those what-ifs, wistfully thinking of a life where he and the titular object of his affection lives together in happiness. But that sort of thinking is ultimately folly. Nostalgia is also fantasy; it is merely a way for us to exist an a life that has long past and will likely never come again. It's tragic in many ways - even more so when epitext meets text and forces beyond the film's control profoundly changes its meaning. Both past and present scenes in Ngayon Kaya are from time periods that no longer exist. We no longer live in a world where we can roam freely and watch gigs at Saguijo or Route 196. Some of those places have long closed down, and in this film we are merely seeing their ghosts. We no longer live in a world where we can walk around with no masks or not worry about the threat of sickness or death. The film, produced before the pandemic, was supposed to be released theatrically in early 2020, before the world stood still. It now stands as a snapshot of life just before everything changed forever.
The movie ends on an ambiguous note: one that could either cynically reinforce the idea of pragmatism versus idealism or offer a single, defiant kernel of hope - in that it is never too late to change things and pursue your dreams, all else be damned. I immensely enjoyed Ngayon Kaya, despite its flaws: a technically adept, well-acted romance that, while not Prime Cruz's best, is still worth watching.
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