Lloyd (Enchong Dee), Joax (Xian Lim), Boggs (Enrique Gil), and Pat (Kean Cipriano) were the best of friends in high school, and they hope to regain some of that buddy-buddy energy by attending their high school reunion. When they attend the reunion, they realize that their popular gang of friends has been branded with the image of lackadaisical losers who haven't accomplished anything since graduation. Lloyd realizes this above anyone that if he reconnects with Ara (Cristine Reyes), his high school girlfriend, he'll be happy and feel ore accomplished in life. On a spur-of-the-moment decision, the group of friends head on a road trip to find this woman, and along the way, have a plethora of misadventures, coincidentally reconnect with their old girlfriends, and reform an unbreakable bond of friendship.
The Reunion would be a sweet, sincere parable if it wasn't so dull, boring, and formulaic. For one-hundred and three minutes we get lame characters engaging in predictable events, running into old friends spouting foreseeable dialog, and receive a musical montage every few minutes to tie everything neatly together and get a nice narrative recap in case we zoned out. This works on its own level, because it keeps us engaged with the methodical story at hand, yet familiarity breeds contempt all too fast.
This is the second film from the Philippines I've watched, the first being Way Back Home, and another one I've seen starring Julia Montes, who plays Ligaya, Boggs' love interest here. Montes is such a pretty face in both films. The last one she inhabited a character that whined a bit too much, but was easy to sympathize with in her situation. Here, she embodies nothing more than a pretty face with no spark at all. It's not her fault, however; she's victim to some of the dullest, most perfunctory writing a young actress can get.
Part of the reason this film falls flat is its inability to give us characters worth viewing, or for that matter, ones we really care about. Perhaps had we see more of these characters in high school would we have gotten more invested in their story. Then again, an American film called 10 Years got by without showing us the high school scenes because its tone was more dramatic and we felt a strong sense of seriousness there. Here, we get nothing but lame comedy and ho-hum melodrama. The longer scenes go on, the less we care about the characters, and the more redundant things get as there are too many of them, too many simultaneous relationships, too many plot devices, too little development, and many, many scenes that fall tonally flat because of the directorial confusion taking place. One moment, we feel sad because the men are at a loss, the next, they hit a man on his bike with their car. Do we laugh? Do we sympathize? The Reunion is one of the highest grossing films in the Philippines, grossing untold millions at the box office and becoming a mega-hit for the 2012 film year. There's an audience for this type of film, and they will likely find this film enjoyable and easy to watch. However, I'm beginning to see that the Philippines is a country that has films that have obtained unachievable levels that the country may or may not want to be known for. To employ a sociological comparison, they may be more like America than some people believe.
Starring: Enchong Dee, Xian Lim, Enrique Gil, Kean Cipriano, Cristine Reyes, Julia Montes, Jessy Mendiola, Matt Evans, Megan Young, and Bangs Garcia. Directed by Frasco Santos Mortiz.
