Ang Kwento Nating Dalawa (The Story of Us That Never Was): Movie Review

"Ang Kwento Nating Dalawa" (The Story of Us That Never Was") serves as the first film to "Tayo sa Huling Buwan ng Taon" (which we recently reviewed here). Unsurprisingly, this first film was pretty rough feeling disjointed, non-coherent and ultimately shallow. While it was interesting to know the story behind its sequel, we're surprised there was a sequel in the first place given the poor narrative quality of the first film.

A young filmmaker Sam (Nicco Manalo) and an aspiring writer Isa (Emmanuelle Vera) meet at the train station and are heavily contemplating their short but fulfilling non-committal six month relationship. As the realities of their situation rises, both know that the backdrop of how their relationship bloomed and developed has already set their fates a long time ago and must make hurtful decisions head-on. 

"Ang Kwento Nating Dalawa" was a very rough film experience. If you're into films like "Before Sunset", then maybe you'll actually like it. But for us, the dialogue and script wasn't even interesting at all and there was little chemistry between Emmanuelle Vera and Nicco Manalo, which are crucial in actually making the whole experience work. Don't get us wrong, this is a well-acted film and feel natural and real-life but we just couldn't get into its one-day concept especially knowing that the relationship between our characters was based on a very toxic setup meaning most conversations are just that - toxic. Aside from that, scenes felt disjointed and severely over-stayed their welcome most of the time. We could see this film working better as a short film or at least half an hour shorter. The only real positives for the film was its excellent cinematography and the way it was able to capture student life and Metro Manila in a very believable and accurate manner. Overall, "Ang Kwento Nating Dalawa"  fell prey to its own stylistics desires over actual contemplative writing.   

 

Rating: 2 reels

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