When love dies

I watched UP again a few days ago. I mention this because I watched And I Love You So after and promptly realized that they both had something similar going on: the perfect romance that ends too soon, right at the beginning of the film. Mr. Fredricksen becomes a widower after decades of marriage with his childhood sweetheart Ellie, while Lara (Bea Alonzo) becomes a widow after five months of marital bliss with her college sweetheart Oliver (Derek Ramsay). Five months, five years, five decades—it doesn’t matter how long you’ve been married, losing a spouse is never easy.

While Mr. Fredricksen had to lighten his hold on old routines and old dreams, Lara has to work on standing up on her own feet. Oliver was as perfect as perfect could get for a 24-year-old bride. Not only was he hot (Derek Ramsay, hello!), he took over things she couldn’t do (he let her drive, but did the parking), made her dreams come true (he gave her a pre-school to run), and made her fall in love with him every single day of their short-lived marriage (and was doing just that too, for her birthday, when he suffered an aneurysm). In short, lovely, well-meaning husband spoiled lovely, naïve wife, and left her entirely dependent on him, unable to do things on her own.

Seven months into life without Oliver, enter impetuous Chris (Sam Milby), he who apparently has the tendency to bulldoze his way through pretty ladies’ suffering hearts. He sees the beautiful widow standing outside a restaurant, is attracted to her right away, and takes the opportunity to get to know her better when she happens to be the owner of a condo unit he wants to rent. He shifts from heavy flirting to TLC when Lara needs it, helping her find happiness again and, more importantly, pushing her towards independence.

Unfortunately for Chris, Lara does realize that she needs to be independent. When Chris decides to take their relationship to another level, she backtracks and declares she isn’t ready. For all Chris’ good intentions, he wasn’t helping either; grieving is something that has to take its due course, and while it helps to have a friend’s support, most of it has to be traveled alone.

The end—for this chapter of their romance, at least.

Directed by Laurenti Dyogi, And I Love You So is a pretty compelling romantic drama. This film is Bea’s step up to major leading lady status; she performs well enough to give Sam a boost too. Still, Sam has to keep working on his accent, because it gets in the way of his essaying a role competently. Gone is the age of mixed-breed actors saying they’re mahirrrap; a decidedly foreign twang can only be written into the script in so many ways, and I’ve surely had my fill of all those. Perhaps Derek can give Sam some pointers?

One drawback I noticed is that Sam and Bea still don’t have the same chemistry that John Lloyd Cruz and Bea enjoy. With Sam and Bea, there’s not enough friction that makes a love team magical. As I see it, Sam is too safe, killer abs and lover-boy build up notwithstanding. Personally, I’d rather see him as Oliver and Derek as Chris.

Maybe it’s high time Derek gets to work on his own star on the walk of fame?

And I Love You So was written by Jacqui Franquelli and Vanessa Valdez, the latter being one of the writers of One More Chance. Because of Valdez, I can’t help but compare the two films, still with One More Chance my hands-down favorite.

Nevertheless, And I Love You So also has some unforgettable moments and power lines that I’ve come to expect from Star Cinema romances. The lines uttered by Lara when she decides to put an end to her fledgling romance with Chris are powerful and just about capture the film’s takeaway: that if it’s meant to happen, it’s going to happen. The best way to deal with it is to face it, deal with the situation as best you can, and keep turning the pages of your life’s adventure.