Hello, Goodbye, Love (2019)
Review of Hello, Goodbye, Love (2019), directed by Catherine Garcia-Molina
Having come from a city with a huge population of Filipino immigrants, it would’ve been impossible to not hear about the many wonders that the Philippines offers. And, of course, one of the things that many people love to gush about are Filipino dramas. All my Southeast Asian friends in general love Filipino dramas and never shut u about how great they are.
It’s only until recently that I began to venture outside of my comfort zone and begin to consume entertainment that’s outside of Korea (besides film, I watch film from anywhere), but this movie right here was my first Filipino movie I ever watched.
Netflix actually recommended this to me. It was at the very top banner, I was bored, and so I thought hey I might as well give this a try. I didn’t even read the synopsis about what this was about, nor did I bother to look it up. If I had, I would’ve discovered that this movie is currently the highest-grossing Filipino movie of all time and that both of the leads are super famous.
Anyways, I was in for a surprise. Let’s begin the review!
Content
I want to start this review off by saying that I honestly know nothing about Filipino culture and society, so if something I say sounds ignorant or just stupid, feel free to shoot me a message and inform me of my sin. I love to learn and fix these issues.
Our main character in this film is Joy, a Filipino domestic work helper in Hong Kong. At the very beginning of the film, if you’re not informed about this phenomena, you can deduce that a lot of women are there to work this way and that if they risk losing their job or can’t line up another contract in time, they get deported.
This is how our main character meets the male lead: Ethan. She’s illegally still here because her employer has cut her contract in half—she can’t afford to pay her the legal minimum, which she tries to let Joy go, but Joy begs to stay at half the rate.
We see a lot of drama at this job, as the daughter seems autistic or mentally incapacitated, the mother is touchy about not doing things right and on time, and the grandmother just straight up hates Joy.
Joy meets Ethan while the cops are looking to arrest and deport her. Ethan is the bartender at the restaurant she’s at, he offers her a free drink because apparently he’s a womanizer, and then he follows her as she flees from the cops.
How a random bartender and not the cops manages to find her is the true question I’m asking here.
Anyways, he scares the shit out of her (which isn’t cool, I wouldn’t tolerate that behavior) by pretending to be the cops, she begs at his feet then realizes he’s just faking it. This begins their tumultuous game in which she kind of uses him to let off steam and hide from the cops, while he stalks her on the Internet and then keeps sending her messages.
Which, to be frank, is really creepy. I know I wouldn’t be flattered if some guy I met on the street and tried to flirt with me kept stalking me. But, in a way, she did kind of lead him on too.
She made out with him to hide from the cops and, when upset, tells him to meet her and they go back to his room and almost have sex. As much as I love to drag men for their problematic behaviors, both of them are problematic here.
Some other side threads are the mother being married to a Chinese guy named Wayne who also beats her, and Joy’s dad still being in love with her mother despite her being married to this guy for the living permit to stay.
It becomes obvious to all of us, even Joy, that despite her efforts to reunite the entire family in Canada, that this isn’t going to go very well. This is her background struggle, while Ethan’s is that a girl dumped him. Like I get the trauma stays with you dude, but he seems just so lost with life.
Their relationship is cute throughout this, like I genuinely enjoyed seeing them meet each other in between side hustles and like slurping down a bowl of noodles in less than five minutes then peacing out. I usually don’t like romance but I dig this.
It’s a very young adult coming-of-age story. We have these two young people trying to make lives for themselves overseas, which really isn’t easy. But then they find solace in each other, despite the ending being kind of sad.
It shows to me that because they live overseas and in a big city, they are unable to be together. The hustle and grind for a better life, to provide for the family, will always come first, as well as the thought of chasing after your dreams.
Which I absolutely love this message, because Joy didn’t ditch everything she worked for just to be with this guy. It sucks if you’re super into the romance, but I personally enjoyed it.
Some fun little tidbits I noticed as I was watching: some absolutely stunning shots of Hong Kong and the main characters.
The random fashion show that serves no purpose except to bring the ex back into Ethan’s life and create some drama (to be honest, think the film could’ve dropped that and it still would’ve been fine). The way that the characters mix English and Tagalog (is that normal? I find it so cute but also kind of forced at times in this film). The bromance and the sisterly love. It’s all well-done.
Overall Thoughts
It’s a cute movie. I’ll give it that. It was worth the time spent watching it because I genuinely enjoyed it. A bit of a problematic start with both of our main characters, but I’ll overlook it at times.
I think that the ending really made it worth it for me, because often women push away their dreams and aspirations for a guy that doesn’t treat them as good as they deserve. Ethan treated her pretty well in this movie, but she would’ve had a better life in Canada.
And if it’s meant to be it’s meant to be. If you love someone you need to learn to let them go in the long run. Give this a shot if you are vaguely interested in the premise and have some time to spare.
