Script that took forever and a day

To get anywhere really, and in the end didn’t even get close to redeeming itself. Unless of course redemption is about finally – finally! – having a local romance that doesn’t end as happily as usual? But even that gets lost in the aftermath of a movie that was more than anything, a waste of talent (the actors’ and director’s) and time (mine). Forever And A Day (directed by Cathy Garcia-Molina, screenplay by Melissa Mae Chua and Carmi G. Raymundo) began with the grand goal of talking about love and death. In the end what resonates is that the self-centered executive Eugene (Sam Milby) compared his work problems with the pain of Raffy (KC Concepcion), a cancer patient. What resonates is that this movie’s dream of a complex love story ultimately had a nightmare of a script, one that created characters with no real motivations, one that had a story that could not for the life of it deal decently with death and love. When I say that this movie doesn’t deal, I mean there are no real conversations here, no conversation at all between Eugene and Raffy on that one day (actually three) that they found themselves thrown together in Bukidnon and Cagayan de Oro. On those days all we saw were the two doing extreme activities, first with an amount of yabangan, later with some laughter, but nary a relevant conversation. That this lack of conversation is in the first 30 minutes of the movie when Eugene and Raffy are supposed to fall in love, made that famous scene where KC delivers the line, “Kaya mo bang mahalin ang isang taong alam mong mawawala rin sa’yo?" absolutely laughable. Because the real answer to that question should’ve been: “Try mong mahalin ang taong hindi mo kinausap." Yet this movie got worse as conversations began occurring. Back in Manila and in crisis about his job, Eugene finds himself going to Raffy and had the gall – the gall! – to ask the cancer patient about his life. So fine, the ailing girl teaches the boy to value his life and fight for his job, let’s forgive that. But must it be done with insensitivity? So they decide to fall in love, but Eugene has a brilliant plan to get Raffy to go back to chemotherapy. This, after it’s established that Raffy is a stage-four cancer patient who had gone through chemotherapy three times, and was now refusing the pain and suffering it brings. This, after it’s established that Raffy’s one wish was to now live her life to the fullest, given her limited time, ergo the trip she took to conquer her fears. But maybe she should’ve feared the most horrible boyfriend on the planet. Eugene offers Raffy an exchange deal: he would go back to his job, if Raffy went back to chemotherapy sessions. Yes, because the psychology of dying and the pain of chemotherapy is only equal to our professional crises. Then the movie goes on to show Eugene without motivations, his crises unclear, his love questionable. He was nothing but selfish, focused only on what he wanted in the face of a sick girlfriend. When finally Eugene concedes to Raffy’s wishes, her body was already taken over by chemotherapy and not cancer. At this point you can only be angry at the worst possible boyfriend on the planet. There is no retribution. This might explain why for the first time Sam’s acting doesn’t work here. What’s sad is that he had moved from doing the expected in romantic comedies (My Big Love, Babe, You Got Me) to doing good work via And I Love You So (as rebellious biker dude) and Third World Happy (as the Filipino-American struggling with dreams and death). In Forever And A Day, given a script and story such as this one, Sam obviously had very little to work with. KC meanwhile had a little bit more on her plate here, though it also wasn’t clear why or how Raffy had fallen in love with Eugene, or who Raffy was extraneous to her ailment. What was clear though was that Raffy wanted to face her fears, and that her silences were about the struggle with life and death. Without the make-up and fancy clothes, in rubber shoes and in a real woman’s body (thank goodness!), away from the role of the romantic comedy lead, KC for the first time is shorn of self-conscious acting. Here the quiet and introspection her character required saw KC digging so deep you see the honesty in her eyes, and feel her pain. It’s credit to KC’s acting that you understand and respect her character’s decision not so much to give up on living, but to concede to the truth of dying. This decision made by Raffy could’ve brought this movie to the one path that would’ve been respectful of the sick and dying, where we are told not to impose our demands on their survival. This movie could’ve shown us how love happens for two people regardless of impending death, what can be done to fit a lifetime into dwindling days. This movie could’ve shown us how love might not be able to save us, but it can teach us that many things are unimportant and irrelevant, as there are things that are important to say and do between two people who are in love on limited time. Instead Forever And A Day took the path that no one with a terminal condition should be made to go through. In the struggle between love and death, it decided to side with love. In the end this only meant agreeing to selfishness, and pain. What an injustice to love. – GMA News