Star Cinema’s “Loving in Tandem” narrates the story of Shine (Maymay Entrata), a carefree and cheerful girl whose main priority in life is her family. She prays for an ‘angel’ to come, who promptly arrives at an unfortunate time when she is struggling to resolve a financial predicament, that forces her to enlist the help of pickpocket friends to gather the needed money.
Luke (Edward Barber), a grumpy and unmanageable Filipino-American, travels to the Philippines to get her mother agree to selling their house, just so his father could collect enough fund to settle his burgeoning debts.
Unfortunately, he stumbles upon Shine’s group and instantly loses the money he means to use for booking a flight back to the States.
The ensuing events entail Shine secretly trying to make amends with Luke, whom she finds out to be living just next door. The story then goes to stretch from here to paint Shine as a charming and adorable character. But when Luke finds out her involvement with the group who took his wallet, the narrative then spends practically half of the film trying to convince Luke isn’t a character to root for. He remains derisive towards his mother, and indifferent with his three brothers.
As punishment, he forces Shine to work in multiple jobs for her to earn back the money he lost to her cutpurse friends. The film then becomes a hodgepodge of shifting moods that underscore both Luke’s difficult temperament and Shine’s contagious optimism.
In between, are sappy moments that are obviously inserted to allow the two leads’ supposed chemistry work, and ill-fitting emotional proceedings that often abruptly end before even grasping the audience’s attention.
Maymay Entrata comes out as a natural comedian. She proves effective at every comic effort she exerts in the film, her inherent frolics matching the charismatic bubbliness of Shine. But then there are parts where this comic allure are proven unnecessary, most of which in fragile moments where she is supposed to deliver more vulnerable emotions.
Edward, on the other hand, easily maneuvers his character that seems tailor-fit for him. It really helps that his character doesn’t really require him to talk a lot in the local language, as it allows him to personify Luke as close to what is required as possible. But surprisingly, in dialogues where he is asked to speak straight tagalog, Edward actually sounds better than most Filipino-American actors we have in the business today.
Arguably, his character is structurally-deprived and emotionally-flawed, making caring for it difficult. Fortunately, Edward’s natural nuances make up for where Luke is at fault, thereby enabling the character exude an irresistible appeal in spite of its shortcomings. It also helps that Edward has an overwhelming affinity to the camera, which works very well in his favor as it compensates for everything his character lacks. He just looks charming through and through in the movie.
The biggest flaw of the film, perhaps, is the story, itself. There are a lot of unnecessary intricacies here that prevents the narrative from flowing smoothly, hence it comes out seemingly undecided which tone to carry. There are many sweet moments in the film that are deprived with enough space to reach the audience, when it obviously intends to gather affection that lasts.
There are dramatic moments that are motivated with strong emotions, but you can’t just take them seriously because the sequence itself hampers the empathy to grow. Sometimes it’s just funny even when it tries not to be.
There are also characters whose developments pale in comparison with the leads’, and that in spite of the fact that even Shine and Luke, themselves, are not given enough room to fully evolve.
The pair that Marco Gallo and Kisses Delavin make, may left the audience wanting to learn where their supposed young romance would further go, or that maybe they have a better story. But then there is a limited actual space for any brewing romance to be placed under the spotlight.
But in spite of these blemishes, it is actually not that difficult to fall for this film. This is a film of beautiful intentions that mainly revolve around family, responsibilities, and the self worth we both lose and find in the process.
Direk Giselle Andres’ confused direction may have made this another romcom piece largely messy, but she managed to put some appealing elements on right places.
Maymay is such a delight in this film, Edward is a charmer, and they make an oddly amusing pair. ‘Loving in Tandem’ is enjoyable if you will believe it can be.
RATING: 3/5
