Valentine’s in March

Maybe. On Saipan last Friday was a post-Valentine movie, Always be my Maybe, a teaser for the Pinoy response to monogamous commitment still the legal form of marital bliss. The divorce is supplanted by the dissolution of a marriage through separate properties but without the option to remarry, or, annulment, e.g., if the marriage was not consummated, or is based on a lie. A marriage is declared invalid when provisions of the nation’s family code such as incest and underage coupling are crossed.

As a context to the movie, the reality that the Philippines remains as the only country that still bans divorce (well, the Vatican does, too, but it has less than 500 citizens), and idolizes the virtue of singular faithfulness in long lasting relationships adjudged true at by a certain social strata purely on the basis of sexual fidelity. The Roman Catholic Church along with Reformation cousins transplanted the chivalrous romantic notion of Europe in their mission in Pea Eye.

To hold this context in mind makes it easier to understand the movie’s held back “maybe” character, the propensity of current millennials to withhold half-baked commitments until it is time, or it is too late for “true love” to happen.

One need only stroll down Paseo de Marianas to hear a Filipina’s sob story of how she was led to strip on stage, or dress half naked down the stairway as a come-on to curious visitors because she was lead down the path of unrighteousness by deception, abuse, or misuse. In stark objective contrast, Sino ladies just want to know if one desired a $60 or a $100 service!

Half of the Maybe movie story revolves around two folks who hoped for a lasting relationship with their current beloveds only to be frustrated by a parting of ways. The forsaken duo saw themselves as victims of someone’s wiles leading to a separation rather than as full participants in the eventuality all along. They met and joined forces to see if they can help each other find better replacements of their exes.

The protagonists in the movie are Jake del Mundo (Gerald Anderson) with Tracey, and Kristina “Tintin” Paraiso (Arci Muñoz) with Jeric. Five years of being together in their respective relationships, Jake and Tintin longed for permanence. Jake proposed but was told by Tracey that he was a year too late; she found someone else.

In the same fashion, Tintin expected Jeric to propose after he led on that he wanted to give her something, only to be handed an electronic drive that she lent him containing movies. She also discovers an announcement on her smartphone of the object of Jeric already committed to someone else. Contrived? Yes. But this is the cinema, so who cares?

The plot follows after Jake and Tintin met and began to scheme on ways to assist each other find replacements of their exes, having mutually declared that one is not the type of the other, of course, only to find in the course of the movie their inner feelings headed in the opposite direction.

A Pinoy film though the actor’s physique are more European than Malay. Jake easily fits an Italian playboy as Tintin can pout her way through the colds of upper Michigan. No matter. What renders the movie recognizably Pinay, never mind the electronic gadgets of current milllenials abundant nor a barrio dalaginding see her particulars in the picture, is its affinity to the illusion of “true love.”

Jilted by Tracey, Jake who is third party in a lucrative family business indulges in six months of self-pity holed-out in a resort he owns by the beach; likewise, Tintin goes schizophrenic in swings of self-affirmation and self-destruction after Jeric brushes her aside. She plays a make-up artist who earns enough to afford a car and lives in a calle middleclass neighborhood in the Metro.

A Tintin self-expression posted online goes viral and earns notoriety. Jake nurses his despair; Tintin keeps up the facade with a bold face. She hurts deeply and badly but won’t show it. Then the two forlorn lovers met at his resort, shared the intoxicating ennui of the bottle until the morning, told each other their tragic life stories and found out that they were “in the same wavelength.”

Divorce-less Philippines where the romantic notion of “true love” still prevails, seeks the one “we are meant to be forever with,” and hold it at premium value. This renders the story recognizable. Two forsaken lovers find true love in each other’s embrace is a common tao escapist dream.

In the Metro city, they launch the search to replace the exes but were drawn closer to each other. She nudges him to fulfill his passion in photography; she ends up posing as the model for his camera. A little hump on the plot has Tracy and Jeric come back into the picture with a twist on the rye but clenches commitments after Jakes fit of callousness and jealousy on reluctant Tintin.

It is good entertainment never mind that the quest for meaningful reality might take a backseat behind the wonder of imaginings.