Editor’s Note: this review contains minor spoilers.
At its deepest core, Yung Libro sa Napanood Ko has the sincerest intention to not just create the Filipino fantasy of being in a K-Drama setup but to also tackle and explore love, intuition, and trauma. The film’s director and writer Bela Padilla (who is credited as BELA) has the knowledge of capturing the beauty of love, confusion, getting lost, and recovering in Seoul but unfortunately, it’s not enough to cover the glaring flaws of the story’s execution.
Aside from directing the film and penning the screenplay, Padilla also stars as Lisa, a single woman who eats and breathes K-Drama. The film lets its audience know that K-Drama is Lisa’s life and she only watches them on Vivamax (the company behind Yung Libro’s distributor). Literally, there were a few minutes devoted to Lisa pressing the remote to pick her K-Drama series on the streaming platform. Neat brand endorsement. Because of her obsession with her favorite K-Drama, she tried to find the book featured in the series: Doris Lessing’s To Room Nineteen. It’s about a woman renting her own room to be alone and away from her married life. Despite being single, Lisa wants to experience her own To Room Nineteen.
A year later (probably? The jump in time was not clarified by the editing), Padilla wrote Yung Libro sa Napanood Ko, a best-selling book that was described by its readers (and Boy Abunda in a cameo) as “life-changing” and “inspirational”. What exactly is the book all about? Is it her fascination with K-Dramas? Her journey to look for To Room Nineteen? The film did not bother to answer those questions. We’re just supposed to believe the praises it got.
During a book signing, a Korean named Kim Gun Hoo (Yoo Min-Gon in his debut feature) approaches Lisa to have his book signed. Kim is not just a fan; he is determined to win Lisa’s heart. The film intends to have the tried-and-tested meet-cute cliché but the awkward closeup shots of Kim and Lisa’s faces literally felt on the nose. The shots were attempting to highlight the two’s mixed emotions of interest, confusion, and the intuitive feeling of having an established connection despite meeting for the first time. I cannot help but laugh at how it was too zoomed in to their faces, it felt invasive of my own space.
In his attempt to win Lisa’s heart, Kim offered her a ticket to Seoul. Lisa is not stupid and she’s aware of how it was bizarre for her fan to immediately invite her to South Korea. Still, she accepted the invitation and went to the picturesque country with Kim. Yung Libro is not entirely an escapist romantic film. It is aware of its own realistic questions. Why did Lisa immediately trust Kim? Why was Kim having certain flashbacks? These questions were addressed in a plot twist that used a tired teleserye trope masqueraded as another health condition to forward the already-dragging story between Lisa and Kim.
Despite the laughable and eye-rolling execution of the story, I can see the earnest attempt of BELA fleshing out Lisa. She’s not a manic pixie dream girl; she is a complicated, messy, lost woman who wants to find peace and closure about her personal issues. Lisa doesn’t want to be limited by her trauma. She seeks agency and empowerment. But it’s hard to appreciate these efforts when the film rushes to the declarations of epiphany without carefully setting up the foundations of the scene.
When Lisa looked at the camera in a Korean show and says a certain someone knows her book is dedicated to them, was I supposed to feel hope and excitement for Kim? Unfortunately, I cannot buy what the scene is selling. All of these shortcomings of this romantic film can be forgiven, especially for Padilla who’s just starting to beef up her directorial and writing portfolio, if it weren’t for the lack of chemistry between the leads. Padilla did her job in acting the nuances of Lisa’s complications in figuring out her life while Yoo shines in the highly-dramatic parts of the film, a commendable feat for his debut film role. But when they’re together, Padilla and Yoo are like two people who were randomly paired together and told to do some test screenings of the characters. The sceneries of Seoul can only do so much to romanticize their pairing.
Yung Libro sa Napanood Ko was screened at the 1st Summer Metro Manila Film Festival.
Bela Padilla’s first feature film was 366. Now streaming on Vivamax.
