10 things that I love about the AlDub flick

“I would like to fall in love again!”

Like Susan Roces, that must be how the millions who have seen the AlDub movie Imagine You & Me nationwide felt — falling in love all over again. Susan was among those invited by Tony “Mr. T” Tuviera, the movie’s producer, to an exclusive block screening last Saturday at the Directors Club of SM Megamall.

Mr. T was mum on how many millions the movie has raked in so far (excluding the projected gross during the international screenings). But judging from his wide, wide smile during an early dinner he and his wife Mads hosted at the Din Tai Fung restaurant (which serves excellent Taiwanese cuisine, at the mall’s ground floor), Mr. T didn’t have to say how much.

Anyway, besides what Susan said about making her fall in love again, here are the 10 things that I love about Imagine You & Me:

1. It beautifully describes what a real feel-good movie is.

2. Aside from the smooth direction by Mike Tuviera, the cleverly-written screenplay by Renato Custodio and Aloy Adlawan (who, like me, is a Waray, from Laoang, Northern Samar), that reminded me of Love Story (what can you say about a young girl who dies?), An Affair To Remember (a girl not showing up on a crucial date with no rhyme nor reason), Gone Girl (clues in the form of pieces of a broken heart made of glass) and The Fault In Our Stars (a girl fascinated with a Shakespearean story).

3. Maine Mendoza is a-OK but she needs more “depth” and credibility in dramatic scenes.

4. Alden is consistent from beginning to end, such a cuddlesome boy with eyes that mirror a world of emotions, especially when they are welling up in a dramatic moment.

5. Jasmine Curtis-Smith is a revelation as an actress; she melts your heart with her losing battle with leukemia.

6. The cinematography by Shayne Sarte is mesmerizing, making you feel like flying to Como, Italy…but, sob and sigh, you simply can’t afford so you just soak yourself up in those, yes, delicious sceneries where Alden and Maine’s characters meet and match.

7. The soundtrack is touching, the musical background not intrusive at all, and the song Imagine You & Me (lyrics by Maine, music by Vic Sotto and arrangement by Jimmy Antiporda) aptly describes the split-screen-to-big-screen AlDub romance which the AlDub Nation hopes will leap from reel to real.

8. I agree with what Teddy Boy Locsin wrote that Imagine You & Me is sui generis (according to Webster: constituting a class alone, unique, peculiar) and, “a tough act to follow.”

9. Cai Cortez and Kakai Bautista as Maine’s roommates are a delight to watch, unwitting scene-stealers; and

10. Imagine You & Me brings back fond memories of 20 years ago when Giselle “G” Tongi and I were in Lake Como to cover the launch of Ricky Martin’s first English album at the villa of Giorgio Armani, with the event capped by fireworks that lit up the lake as we watched from the veranda of Armani’s villa.

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