There comes a time in a relationship where things start to shift from the exciting highs of new love to the beginnings of a longer-lasting partnership. That’s why relationships are often very different as their duration grows longer; in longer term relationships, one partner has more time to learn about their partner’s quirks and idiosyncrasies. Certain traits or behaviors that were previously unnoticed tend to pop out – traits that could have jeopardized the relationship had they emerged earlier. But longer relationships entail a huge amount of compromise from both parties, and they last because both parties know that they are not perfect people, and neither are their partners. The crucial piece to all this is an atmosphere of trust, transparency and openness between people.
Unfortunately for a lot of people, that last sentence is easier said than done, and it hardly applies to the protagonists of Everything About My Wife, the adaptation of Min Kyu-dong’s 2012 film All About My Wife, itself an adaptation of Juan Tarauto’s Un Novio Para Mi Mujer (2008). Dom (Dennis Trillo) and Imo (Jennylyn Mercado) have been married for several years now, and their marriage is less than ideal: while Dom is busy with work as the breadwinner, Imo feels trapped as a housewife, unable to realize her personal and professional aspirations. This is a ticking timebomb waiting to explode, and the entrance of a hunky casanova, Miguel (Sam Milby) provides an out: Dom drunkenly proposes that Miguel seduce his wife so that he can have a reason for them to separate.
This is, in all aspects, a terrible idea, and it all boils down to a fundamental incompatibility between the two: Imo is proactive, always needing a solution to whatever’s bothering her. The inertia of a person trapped at home drains her emotionally. Meanwhile, Dom is the exact opposite: he is the ultimate passive partner. Dom uses Miguel as a proxy instead of confronting Imo directly, and he is unable to protect Imo from his domineering mother (Carmi Martin). Communication would have smoothed out these problems, but these are two people who have stopped talking to each other.
You’d expect the film to be dead serious, but this is a comedy. Everything About My Wife is, for the most part, a very funny film. Most of the comedy stems from Jennylyn Mercado’s fantastic performance as Imo – part irritating, part snarky, part wacky. The lady was born for romcom roles. Though the film sometimes struggles when it transitions from serious to funny parts, the overall product isn’t too jarring tonally.
In the past few months, there have been a number of films that tackle the many complexities of maintaining (and ending) a long term relationship. Ex Ex Lovers, for example, shows us that, despite the genre’s many tropes romanticizing staying in a committed relationship, sometimes relationships are doomed to fail from the start, as they prevent us from becoming our best selves. Everything About My Wife takes a different approach, saying that trust and communication are the most important parts of a robust partnership. Without them, the relationship’s foundations are built on sand.
They say to be loved is to be seen, and for a good chunk of the film, Dom and Imo keep on seeing past each other, their gaze landing on other things: distractions, other partners, resentment, even themselves. By the end of this film, one feels that Dom and Imo have truly seen each other once again for the first time in a long time, the film ending at a crossroads for Dom and Imo, linking the past (why did I love you?) and future (where do we go from here?) together.
