A persistent beauty constantly lurks amid the constricted romance shared by Gabby (Jennylyn Mercado) and Gab (Derek Ramsay), in Dan Villegas’ ‘All Of You’. There is some confounding allure largely consists both in the joys and pains brought by their relationship, and it creates an emotional loop that brings the audience into their world. It imparts a familiar experience that is exciting and frightening at the same time, but only up to a point when the narrative has nothing else to talk about but the ruins of their romance, and how it ended up there.
If we were to judge the merit of this love story merely by assessing the chemistry between Mercado and Ramsay, it is very likely that ‘All of You’ will join the ranks of ‘One More Chance’ and ‘Got To Believe’ as one of the most loved love stories of the modern Filipino cinema. But one would get the impression that the film isn’t a pretty portrait with perfectly-drawn figures and faces. There is a bubbling tension that keeps the beauty from taking a more solid form, that it fails to create an opportunity for the the audience to get where these unfortunate people are coming from. It then becomes difficult to appreciate the better parts, because it keeps going through the rough patches of the narrative. The blame may be be pinned on the narrative’s deficiency on balancing out the good and the bad in the characters’ situation, because it reserves practically all the attention on exploring the latter. And that does not necessarily mean bad, except that it does not justify nor explain the motivations of such odd choice.
Jennylyn Mercado is no stranger to Gab as she’s played similar roles in her past movies. Her familiarity to Gab’s plight gives her edge to get all the character’s sentiments across. Mercado brims with convincing appeal, having fully maneuvered her character from its most beautiful to ugliest forms, with apparent ease. She is more convincing in Gab’s fragile moments where she shreds all her flaws, taking note of them as crucial fragments of an imperfect but striking sketch of beauty. Ramsay, on the other hand, has some evident struggles to articulate Gabby, but he shares some of the most affecting moments in the film, particularly in the car confrontation scene, and that is a plus given the fact that the character itself limited him to extend his emotional range.
It is also interesting that the film embraces non-conventional views on who usually is to blame when relationships end, and why. The film’s take on such aspect bears some cleverness that it might have raised some critical points to shed light on such debate. Be that as it may, it is still unfortunate that the film never really manages to bounce back after it essentially finishes its path to the complete degradation of its characters. And that feels frustrating for the most part.
It seems that ‘All Of You’ has never really moved on from its inundating notions about how awful a relationship two equally awful share, can be, that until the end it never really managed to make the audience believe Gab and Gabby are two people we can still root for. To his credit, Villegas somehow manages to compromise by fully utilizing the film’s exquisite setting to conjure some genuinely powerful imageries, enough to enforce the intended tone of some critical moments in the film. Visually, the film is lovely, but it is really hard to fully acknowledge a form of elegance that could have much much better with just few adjustments. 2.5/5 ratings.
