Verdict? I liked it.
Kathryn Bernardo plays a domestic helper, Joy. A licensed nurse, she is desperate to earn money so that she can move her family to Canada. Presumably Canada was where a better life awaits. Alden Richards is a carefree bartender, Ethan. Ethan is healing from heartbreak. The cast consists of the usual gang: kooky friends, tragi-comic situations, and it is played against the backdrop of Hongkong.
While at the outset "Hello, Love, Goodbye" is a rom-com of sorts, it didn't flinch at the harsh realities of the lives of OFWs eking out a living in a foreign land. It did have all the conventions of a typical boy meets girl formula of Filipino movies popular for so many decades, but the layer of reality and grit added to a surprisingly good film. The Hongkong that is presented here is not the travel magazine glamorized scenes you often see in films like these, Instead you see the the dirty, crowded, cramped underbelly where the characters struggle and try to survive. Only at a counterpoint is the pretty side of the city shown; perhaps as a clever device to show “joy” is found. The film shows a patina of realism that is sobering, and heart-breaking.
The film is about finding love in the most incongruous of places, and times. However, the film is clearly more than that. Set in the midst of back-breaking hard work, kowtowing to inhuman conditions, and demanding alarm clocks, shattered dreams, and the sacrifices people are willing to make in order to reach a point where one is free to "become," the film bravely tackles the tragedy of the choices one has to make in order to make that dream a reality.
Watching this film, one can rail and rant about the conditions that lead millions to travel and leave families and dreams behind in order to pursue ironically a "better life." One can bemoan the hardships and the inhumanity of surviving as a migrant worker, or even as a Filpino. It can also become a door where we can begin redefining identity and meaning and resilience in pursuit of the "summum bonum," (the highest good), and the staggering cost we have to pay to get that. I understand the film at its heart is a rom-com; an escape from the harshness of reality - but there are enough glimpses here to make us sit back and reflect or perhaps stand up and take action.
Watch it for the kilig factor by all means - it is, after all, what it is. But don't miss the unmistakable reality it presents as well.
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