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I’m Drunk, I Love You.
Year of Release: 2017
Director: JP Habac
Screenwriters: JP Habac & Giancarlo Abrahan
(From a story by Giancarlo Abrahan, Shayne Guevara, JP Habac)
Producers: TBA Studios, Tuko Film Productions, Buchi Boy Films
Cast: Maja Salvador, Paulo Avelino, Dominic Roco, Jasmine Curtis-Smith, Jim Paredes, Irma Adlawan, Thou Reyes, Paul Montecillo, Lei Ponce, Kai Honasan, Iego Tan, Juan Miguel Severo, Carlo Lava, Harrold Go, Benjo Robles, Fernando Ortigas, E.A. Rocha, Sharina Magbojos, Celina Penaflorida, Mercedes Cabral, Bianca Patungan
Social-work major Carson practices for her graduation, but her film-major crush Dio picks her up and her gay best friend Jason Ty to watch him perform at an indie-music bar. Afterward Dio invites the two to take a road trip to La Union province, several hours’ drive away from Manila. He treats them to hotel rooms at a beach resort, promising to get them back in time for graduation. The prospect of ending their university-student lives intensifies Carson’s infatuation for Dio, with Jason constantly reining her in so as not to make a fool of herself. Then they discover that Dio brought them along because he wanted to hook up again with Pathy, a girlfriend he had before his college years, and he needed his confidants to tell him whether or not he was on the wrong track.
Although it had a modest viewership during its original release, I’m Drunk, I Love You. (commonly abbreviated IDILY) tended to have an enduring social-network presence, mainly because of its laid-back storytelling as well as a decently successful soundtrack. The songs are acoustic emo pop-indie numbers that comment on the story, referencing cultural icons including romcom star John Lloyd Cruz. Like most music-intensive presentations, the film runs longer than what its narrative would require, but then it proffers nothing out of the ordinary and even pales in comparison to some mainstream romcom samples. Its payoff banks on its independent setup—meaning it allows itself to get away with meandering and haphazard turns in storytelling, reflective of its characters’ anxieties about their transition from financial dependents to income earners who’re suddenly unsure of what directions their lives can and should take. The safe recourse of genre entries is also observed here, in having performers who look sufficiently attractive, so as to warrant stationary closeup shots when these become necessary. On the other hand, the actors also unfailingly provide an edginess to their readings, a factor that would nominally disqualify them from mainstream lead roles, where insistently (and sometimes scarily) realistic options like polyamory, women’s sexual prerogative, and absence of closure or direction can be productively negotiated. Their reward is secured by the occasional endurance of offbeat projects like IDILY, as well as the commitment of native film talents who both abjure the spoiled ipseity of global-filmfest evaluators and the conservative moralism of mainstream adjudicators. It’s a difficult faultline to traverse, but any close observation of any extensive film canon will reveal that most of the culture’s best talents actually flourish in this territory.
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