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In this day and age, technology has become so inextricably linked with the day to day lives of Filipinos. From being used to connect with the world via social media, to being a source of work for a growing majority, we can’t deny the hold that technology has on us. One other aspect of technology that we have come to accept as Filipinos is how it’s being used to find relationships. As early as 10 years ago, you’d be laughed off for saying that you and your partner met through a dating site; now, it has become a normalized way of life. Now, a new tale from VIVA Films and renowned writer/director JP Laxamana dares to ask a timely question: what if Filipinos used the burgeoning tech of Virtual Reality to further escape loneliness?
A Glimpse of Forever stars Jerome Ponce as Dante, a guy suffering from SAD (Social Anxiety Disorder) who gets hired to work as a mo-cap model for a VR dating brick-and-mortar company called ForeVR. When he’s not portraying virtual creations that women fantasize over, he’s a lonely dude who just keeps to himself. All that suddenly changes when Glenda (played by Jasmine Curtis-Smith) comes to ForeVR looking for a specific character model called Kokoy (played by Diego Loyzaga) that hasn’t been used in a long time. Being the only one who can portray said character model in a way that appeases her, Dante suddenly finds himself being drawn to Glenda. But that raises the question: is Dante falling in love with Glenda, or is Glenda just in love with Kokoy?
On the surface, the film admittedly feels like your run-of-the-mill drama of a guy falling in love with a girl; in other words, nothing we haven’t seen before. That’s why it’s a welcome surprise that after watching Glimpse, we can safely assuage those worries. The film comes from the creative genius of Jason Paul Laxamana, who has blessed us with countless titles that have subverted the dramatic film genre by injecting his stories with a raw humanity that allows for deep introspection. Here, he uses the backdrop of technology and love to look deeper into how Filipinos deal with generational trauma, unrealized expectations, and the stigma of taking care of one’s own mental health.
Jerome Ponce has been making his name in countless TV dramas over the years, and has recently appeared in Roadkillers (now streaming on Viva One) where he absolutely steals the show as a wounded soul looking to quiet the demons in his life. Here, he convincingly takes on the difficult role of portraying an introverted person who has to deal with the struggle of having to socialize, as well as decipher if what he feels for someone else is real or not. What could’ve been a one-note role garners depth in his hands, as he vacillates from stoic to wounded to hopeful to defeated in a way that doesn’t feel forced or put-on, but feels genuine. It’s difficult to talk about Diego Loyzaga’s role in the film in detail, as it’s a huge spoiler, but we’ll just say that it’s a marvel seeing him and Jerome sink their teeth into such meaty roles that ask them to step up to the plate. Curtis-Smith draws somewhat the short end of the stick here, as she is relegated to a pseudo-plot device role as she merely reacts to the elements around her; she is given little chance to exude agency as Glenda, but Jasmine ably rises to the challenge given to her.
Admittedly, JP’s last film Penduko was a scattershot mess. It just didn’t feel right, him working on a canvas that didn’t really play to any of his strengths. So it’s a welcome relief to see that Laxamana has bounced back to the high standards that he has set for himself with Glimpse. Known for making films that explore the human condition through common Filipino film tropes (sometimes with genre leanings), he displays here why so many of us have held him in so high regard. His writing of the characters displays a care for imparting an accurate picture of people who suffer from trauma, something that other Filipino writers and directors have relegated to being sources of cheap laughs or cheap tears. He commands that the audience respect the pain of the players on-screen, and he does so with such startling factuality that it’s almost scary how right he gets right the pain of dealing with such emotional wounds.
If you’re going into A Glimpse of Forever hoping to get warm, fuzzy feelings from your standard romantic dramedy, you are sorely mistaken. What you will get is a very intelligent and heartfelt inspection of just how detached we have become as a society, how we’ve co-opted technology as a crutch, and how we constantly try to use it to escape from the pain of our yesteryears. It’s a difficult film to watch, but one that will reward those to let themselves be open to it, and hopefully allow it to help them find their own roads to recovery from their own pain.
CINEGEEK GRADE: A-
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