By Joseph L. Garcia, Reporter
Movie Review
Hold Me Close
Directed by Jason Paul Laxamana
TWO good-looking people and a stunning location don’t always a good film make.
The film stars Carlo Aquino as Woody, and Julia Barretto as Lynlyn. They’re both Filipino migrants to Japan, but Woody definitely lives better.
Lynlyn, an unconvincingly too-pretty vendor at a seafood market, crosses paths with Woody. She has the power to know how a person will impact her life through touch: the power has many gaps though. It gives her an electric shock when a person will affect her negatively, and a feeling of bliss envelops her when a person will affect her positively (the film doesn’t explain how; it just shows Ms. Barretto in pain or in bliss). Woody, much to her deadpan reception, only gives her a neutral charge.
Woody, in love at first sight, tries to win her over to gain a positive charge. He has a power of his own: money. When he feels that a place no longer suits him, he places his finger on a globe and moves to wherever it lands (which is how he found himself in Japan after living in several nations).
Mr. Aquino acts like a smitten high school-aged hero, despite pushing 40; and Ms. Barretto is the melancholy black cat to his Golden Retriever, and with an age gap of more than 10 years. Mr. Aquino is convincingly young and beautiful; but perhaps less of an age gap between our leads would have been more convincing?
After several days of frolicking in Japan, Lynlyn gets a negative charge from Woody after touching him. Her overprotective siblings forbid him from seeing her (Ms. Barretto, looking even younger than her 20-plus years, is supposed to be their older sister, and doesn’t even look like them). They all iron out a deal: Woody has three chances to get his positive charge back when Lynlyn touches him again.
To do this, he has to turn his life around: one, stop running from places; and two, forgive and forget his traumatic past. I have a problem with this setup, because one, the film has a running gag where when things around Woody break, he throws them away instead of repairing them, and also takes this as a sign that he might have to move out soon. Since this film has an element of magic in it, we had thought that this was something magical at work (turns out the magic is a man who can’t be bothered).
Number two, I’m suddenly less sympathetic for Lynlyn, because do you really only stay with someone when they can promise you bliss? Her character is also awfully infantilized: her two brothers jump in to save her every time she gets a negative charge. To be fair, the film establishes in a flashback that she got her power after a ruffian lured her into the woods and attempted to savage her, and thus may prove to be an explanation as to her family’s cloying clinginess. Still, the woman has two hands, feet, and a whole lot of sass: I think she can make it to the next alley on a walk with her lover. During a scene when they’re all present, with Woody’s negative status still hanging over them, they bind Woody’s hands before he can speak to their sister, while they’re watching. What is he going to do, stare at her to death?
Anyway, they break up; and her powers now say her brother has a negative charge. Pissed off that her powers have confined her to a life of avoidance, she runs to the woods where she first got her powers, where she finds Woody, drunk as a skunk and waving his globe, looking for a new city. They have a little scuffle, and she wakes up to find that her powers are gone.
Despite not knowing whether Woody would hurt her or not, she resumes her relationship with him; this time without the aid of magic.
(Spoiler ahead!)
He dies in the end (his demise is communicated through a phone call by his lawyer). It showed why he gave a negative charge after all: his death would hurt her. Members of the audience at the screening I attended laughed at this plot twist, and one man walked out before the last scene (where Lynlyn, in a flower field, gets a wave of bliss from Woody’s spirit’s touch — I thought you gave up the gift?).
The film is at least lovingly shot like a slice-of-life anime, with calming visuals. The cast is reasonably good, but I find it hard to feel sympathy for two people and their sidekicks whose emotions swing so childishly. Any deficiencies from the two main actors are exacerbated by a weak script, and a shaky premise at that. That, and they could have bought a better prop globe.
MTRCB Rating: PG
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