I don't like a lot of breakup movies - it's hard to write characters in the midst of a breakup without making them look like insufferable people, and more often than not the film drags out their inevitable breakup to the point where it gets annoying. But when a movie manages to pull it off, I'm 100% on board. At least in my opinion, that's the case with Real Florido's Will You Be My Ex?.
Joey (Diego Loyzaga) is an architect with ambitions of enhancing his career. Chris (Julia Barretto) is a talented theater actress. They met and fell in love in college and have been together for a while now. It's made quite clear that the two of them are incompatible in terms of what they want from their lives and each other, and there is little to no transparency between them. They recognize this and one day, after a very tumultuous turn of events regarding a pregnancy, Chris leaves Joey and Joey leaves for a job related opportunity in Germany. During this first act, the energy between the two is tense and anxious; the camera mirrors this anxiety with its movement - from one character to another, going in and out with a tentativeness that I can't adequately describe. There's a great shot near the end of this act when the two are separated by frames within frames and Chris literally closes the door on her lover.
Three years later, the two meet again. They're currently considering other partners but the two didn't get closure during their last parting and just can't get enough of each other, their mutual attraction inevitably pushing them back toward each other and towards inevitable heartbreak.
Despite its rather "mainstream" outward appearance, Will You Be My Ex? is a story about the harmful potential of love out of control, without regard for anything else. Despite its cutesy declarations and big gestures towards the end, it is a story of how love can be addicting, leading people into making the worst decisions just to have one more moment with the people they are attracted to, but people that are a bad fit for them relationship-wise. Love is a drug, and this is a film about two addicts in perpetual rehab.
Seeing the movie in that way made me understand (but not excuse) the actions Chris and Joey take throughout the film - unable to let go of each other means getting into lots of half-hearted relationships with other people. Granted, I would have preferred it if Joey had come to this realization on his own without Chris' help, but I'll take it.
I'm sure a lot of other people will not see eye to eye with me - perhaps they won't attach to the two protagonists as much as I did, and they'd consider the film's proclivity for rushing the proceedings near the end (especially a small but interesting side plot about the human wreckage of consolation partners Joey and Chris leave in their wake), it's quite a different approach than I'm used to from studio-backed "romantic" films, and I have to give an A for effort.
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