Ang Henerasyong Sumuko sa Love (The Generation That Gave Up On Love): Movie Review

We barely think about a film's title but after watching "Ang Henerasyong Sumuko sa Love" ("The Generation That Gave Up On Love), we suddenly felt how crucial a title is. This is probably the very first time wherein we felt that a title duped us or at least left us very confused against its content. Unfortunately, that is the lesser issue we had with the film and that title conundrum was actually just the tip of the iceberg when it came to its glaring narrative problems which the film never really resolves.

Five close friends just graduated college and are ready to be adults. To celebrate this achievement, they spend it on an outing out in the woods bonding together. Before ending their trip, they promise to go back annually on the same place, on the same date, at the same time to give them one day a year to rest and never forget their friendship. Exactly a year after, the group fulfills this promise but now with extra problems and baggages in tow as adults. Can they still help each other now that their priorities have changed so much from the previous year?

So as its title may imply, you could go in this movie thinking it was your typical romance film but actually it was not at all. We didn't have much issue with the title disconnect even though ot proved to be quite confusing at first. But if the film was actually a competent experience, a title wouldn't really matter that much right? But "Ang Henerasyong Sumuko sa Love" had much bigger problems. Central to this was its narrative. The film is an anthology, presenting the problems encountered by each one of our main characters the past year. Some encountered issues about labels in relationships, some about commitment, and some about career and money. The premise had potential but the way the film was written, the issues came out as paper-thin and lacked any substance. Worse, the film barely scratched the surfaces of these basic issues presenting audiences with a problem or problems and leaving a character's story arc with little or no conclusion. For example, what happened to Ma-an's problem as an insecure influencer or what about Denzel's commitment issue with relationships? Most of the problems were set aside just to satisfy one character's development by the time we reach the final scene. And there's this feeling that the film wanted the audience to think about each character's destiny like getting an open-ended conclusion on each character's episode. Overall, while there was potential, the film was just a mess. It should have stuck to one character, in our opinion Kurt, and developed his story instead force an anthology type of film.

Rating: 1 reel

Why you should watch it:
- has an interesting but under-developed premise

Why you shouldn't watch it:
- the film had bad writing and character development