On the Film Elevator
Moving stuff from Facebook for archival purposes.
Review: Elevator
Starring my lookalike Paulo Avelino and Kylie Verzosa, Elevator is a romantic drama film involving migrant workers in Singapore. As such, Elevator follows a litany of local movies involving Filipinos abroad, a plot point that has now become a trope (not saying that's bad; a trope is a trope because it works).
There is potential to the plot, but it never gets there. The romance between Avelino and Verzosa seems forced, and I would have been happier if it focused more on the side characters and their plan to make it big. Splitting the movie into different POVs also didn't make any sense since a different POV didn't reveal anything new to the plot. I also didn't like how hypersexualized Verzosa was, with some shots even lingering at her boobs and butt. The music? Also meh. Probably a Gen Z thing.
Avelino's acting is fine - Verzosa's not so much - but it didn't save the movie for me. Ironically, one of the side characters played by Adrian Pang, a Singaporean actor, outshone both Avelino and Verzosa. I also didn't particularly like the ending, which seems to be a cop-out and ruins the growth of both main characters.
Anyway, 2/5, I'll go watch Hello, Love, Goodbye for the nth time, maybe.