‘My Future You’ REVIEW: A love story that doesn’t feel like love
‘My Future You’ REVIEW: A love story that doesn’t feel like love
Francine Diaz and Seth Fedelin in My Future You | Still taken from the film’s official trailer on YouTube
As an audience, we can’t help but set our standards and expectations for plots that discuss time travel and science fiction. I genuinely believe that it’s more difficult for films under this genre to impress the audience — which is likely what happened to My Future You by Crisanto B. Aquino at the 50th Metro Manila Film Festival.
The plot centers on Karen (Francine Diaz) and Lex (Seth Fedelin) who meet through an online dating platform, and eventually discover that they are living more than a decade apart from each other, with Karen living in 2024 and Lex living in 2009. Playing with elements of time and space, the concept is the ultimate selling point of the film, especially considering its unique tieback to family, as opposed to the expected romance. However, the concept falls short when it’s turned into a screenplay.
Even after setting aside preconceived notions of time travel, what makes it difficult to bite into this film is how predictable the plot is — which isn't good for a story that heavily concerns the future of its characters. There are instances where it is so clear what situation is happening, but the characters are clueless for too long. The time it takes for them to resolve a conflict isn’t proportionate to how difficult it is to overcome that conflict and how long it takes for them to come to a revelation is already obvious to those watching.
When it’s revealed that a comet is causing the misalignment of the universe in the early stages of the film, which admittedly isn’t a new phenomenon to anyone who has watched Makoto Shinkai’s Your Name, the time spent on the characters lingering on the obvious could have been spent expounding on this phenomenon — at least to give more depth to the characters and contrast from pre-existing love stories with similar plots.
Overall, with the lack of autonomy of these characters, it is difficult to root for them as a couple even with their strong affection for each other. The relationship doesn’t feel like genuine love or something that will last in the long-term. It is basically their honeymoon phase, so there shouldn’t have been much at stake aside from the thrill of it, especially considering it wasn't too long ago when the couple met online.
It becomes even more frustrating and difficult to root for them once their relationship starts harming arguably more significant aspects of their lives such as their parents. The film is unable to establish what makes this relationship so important and irreplaceable apart from the excitement of young love.
Assuming Regal Entertainment wants to market Fedelin and Diaz as “this generation’s next love team,” as described in their trailer, this isn’t the most convincing film to win audiences over. My Future You definitely has its moments though. Director Crisanto B. Aquino is able to provide beats of “kilig” and visual treatments throughout the movie that have prompted sincere reactions from audiences in the cinema, but these still aren’t enough to save the forced romance between them (but perhaps this is a problem with love team culture in general), or the shortcomings of its narrative.
There are both heartwarming and heartbreaking love stories out there which are made for incredible works of cinema. Some of which also premiered at previous editions of the MMFF. However, My Future You just isn’t one of those.
My Future You premiered at the 50th Metro Manila Film Festival.
