Decrying film clichés is easy. Replacing them with something worthwhile is much harder. Tropes become tropes because they’re often the straight-line, natural-feeling answer to common story problems. How to make a character relatable, an arc satisfying or a story tidy. While storytellers who try to dodge well-worn, familiar narratives deserve recognition for trying harder, the road to hell isn’t the only one paved with good intentions. Films like When I Met You in Tokyo (JG Productions Inc., 2023) show that avoiding safe, lazy choices isn’t enough to make a strong film. It’s necessary to make decisive and meaningful choices as well. Filmmakers Conrado Peru, Rommel Penesa and writer Suzette Doctolero have their hearts in the right place. They’ve created a film about senior citizens that acknowledges them as people, not pathos machines or wisdom dispensers. They focus on female friendships without making them catty or fickle. They avoid cheap melodrama, big life lessons and predictability. But while they’re steering clear of so many pitfalls, they don’t give the impression that they’re steering in any specific direction. The film is a parade of barely connected events, presided over by a barely connected protagonist. Even among a great ensemble of actors, Christopher de Leon stands out. Joey's no-fuss amusement and gentlemanly version of macho come closest to making the film feel distinctive, instead of droning. He sells the romance well. It’s easy to see why Azon (Vilma Santos) allows him into her life, given how he rolls up with a compliment and an insouciant smirk. The film is at its best when exploring Azon and Joey’s comfortable rapprochement, which comes with more affable curiosity than longing or passion. It’s a film that never exits its holding pattern, no matter what else happens.
In When I Met You in Tokyo's case, friendships between older people tend to focus more on a congenial present than digging into each other’s pasts or how inter-gender friendships become easier with age. Santos's performance can be savored for its subtlety, but even that robs the budding romance of its spark. Other than that, the film lacks any visual snap or panache to offset the tonal and narrative blandness. At best, it’s a reasonably sweet, unchallenging character piece that won’t insult older viewers by reflecting them poorly or shallowly. That feels like an accomplishment in itself. But in its relentless lack of significant affect or movement, When I Met You in Tokyo attempts to find a balance between the stimulatingly new and the comfortably familiar. Highly polished yet never quite slick, the film devolves into cartoonish cutesiness with its broadly drawn minor characters, as in a heavy-handed sequence in which Azon and her girlfriends behave like superannuated teenagers. But the main actors' emotional authenticity keeps the story from drowning in unfunny shtick or facile wish-fulfillment. It hangs on a screenplay as random as a dream. It drifts to and fro, leaning too hard on the sparkle provided by its veteran cast, never quite settling on what it wants to say or do. There is a central moment where When I Met You in Tokyo hits a tremendous peak of displayed beauty. That is when Joey steps up to the mic and belts out a rendition of the APO Hiking Society's When I Met You that will leave you speechless. Through song, you feel every ounce of the passionate balance between Joey's independence and loneliness. You see what he was and what he could still be. De Leon's solo is a dynamite moment that the rest of the film cannot match. The few good comedic elements doesn't fit the rest of the film and its weighty take on mortality and love at an advanced age detracts from the heft of what could have been a bigger, bolder dramatic statement or a fuller and more involving romance. When I Met You in Tokyo is one of those screenplays that might have been more interesting a couple of drafts ago, before the detours were closed off. And yet, when Santos’s Azon shares scenes with De Leon’s determined suitor, there’s considerable charm in the results. As When I Met You in Tokyo reminds us, Santos and De Leon are masters in the art of turning ordinary material into little bits of truth and life.
Sound: Armand de Guzman, Fatima Nerikka Salim, Immanuel Verona
Music: Jessie Lasaten
Editors: Froilan Francia, Karla Diaz
Production Designers: Buboy Tagayon, Rey Peru
Screenplay: Suzette Doctolero
Director of Photography: Shayne Sarte, LPS
Directors: Conrado Peru, Rommel Penesa
