![\"03_The](\"http:\/\/www.cinemaoasis.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/03_The-Write-Banner.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The Write Moment<\/strong><\/p>\n Philippines\/ 2018\/ 80 mins<\/em><\/p>\n Filipino & Tagalog with English subtitles <\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Not merely a brilliant parody of the Philippino culture of romance from accomplished writer-director Dominic Lim, \u2018The Write Moment<\/em>\u2019 is easy to enjoy but difficult to describe. Its story-telling mastery and assurance is visible at first sight: a cheesy karaoke video of a break-up song which introduces Joyce and Dave as they frolic in fields of green.<\/p>\n A jump cut in perspective: now Dave is behind a camera, shooting 2 actors rehearse cantankerous lines of deathless love. They\u2019re a bridal couple performing their pre-wedding video. It\u2019s 4 a.m., they hate his overblown script, and outside in the carpark poor old Joyce is sleeping in the car, waiting for her boyfriend to finish his worthless work. Fed up, bored, she breaks up with him: \u201cIt\u2019s not you, it\u2019s me\u201d\/ \u201cDon\u2019t feed me that clich\u00e9, that\u2019s so cruel!\u201d\/ \u201cDave, you\u2019re a nice guy but I\u2019m sorry.\u201d All clich\u00e9s from a grade B romance but done so well. Cut to the wedding as the bride and groom kiss but the focus is literally on Dave the wedding videographer, in charge of this romantic production but clearly elsewhere with Joyce. Dave is the scriptwriter, mapping every development, trying to control the outcome with an eye on The Happy Ending, never able to just be in the moment.<\/p>\n He tries out different scenarios, the most obvious first. Outside her window in the pouring rain, he shouts out his love in crappy lines in the pouring rain. Joyce\u2019s calm reaction: \u201cYou can\u2019t use romance to solve anything\u2026We\u2019re not characters in a movie,\u201d she advises and goes back in the house, leaving him in the Hollywood rain.<\/p>\n To get it right, to get her back, Dave writes and writes until the clock melts, Dali-style. The lines disappear and the script resets, over and over. The office scenes are priceless. Holding the day\u2019s script, he reads aloud its instruction: \u201cHe splashes water on his boss.\u201d He does so as the whole office looks on immobile, like cut-outs of underdeveloped characters.<\/p>\n But Joyce\u2019s no-sex rule bars further progress. He tries to rewrite her over and over to get her to have sex with him again. His impatient Take 2 response to her no-sex rule: \u201cEat my manhood.\u201d Take 3: \u201cOops, there goes my underwear. Your move.\u201d Last Take: \u201cLet\u2019s go to sleep\u201d, to which she responds, \u201cGood idea.\u201d She lays her head on his chest as he holds her in his arms, eyes wide open, motionless. Every possible pleasure is milked out of Joyce\u2019s no-sex rule including an amazing no-sex erotic scene in which his words alone, on the beauty of a sunset, had the power to give her the most intense orgasm of her life. The movie\u2019s outrageous hilarity\u2014the scenes with her parents, the hill resort stay, the ridiculous marriage proposals\u2014riffs off its stone-cold sober and sensitive soul. Philippino cinema is clearly more than healthy; it\u2019s far ahead of the curve. [Alice Skinhead<\/em>]<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Director: Dominic D. Lim<\/strong><\/p>\n Writer: Dominic D. Lim<\/strong><\/p>\n Cinematography: Tey Clamor<\/strong><\/p>\n![\"1The](\"http:\/\/www.cinemaoasis.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/1The-Write-Moment-207x300.jpg\")
<\/p>\n