‘My Future You’ is no ‘Your Name’ (Kimi no Na Wa). The Metro Manila Film Festival (MMFF) film projects its multiverse plot differently. It interweaves the complexity of the setting of its characters pretty neatly, and presents its lead cast in that kind of cute that fills joy in our hearts this holiday season.
With social issues being bannered by most MMFF entries, ‘My Future You’ stands in its own corner of charm and lightness. Should you need a relief from all the heavy stories, this movie is like sipping coffee in a cold morning, giving warmth.
This romantic fantasy film stars Francine Diaz as Karen and Seth Fedelin as Lex who met in an online dating app. They actually live in two different timelines set fifteen years apart, whose connection was made possible through a comet. The rest is about trying to alter their fate as they find balance in their personal lives and their families’.
This launching movie for Diaz and Fedelin, collectively known as ‘FranSeth’ is perfect in the sense that it translates their endearing appeal to the screen: young, both attractive, and both relatively new faces. Diaz is steady, but it is Fedelin and his character that navigates the audiences to the movie’s highs and lows. He is good. And he has this capacity of holding your full attention for an entire sequence.
It is the film’s flow, however, which is its biggest achievement. One can be lost easily as a movie jumps from one timeline to another, but its director Crisanto B. Aquino did that seamlessly, carefully handholding his viewers from 2009 to 2024 and back. There are times that it over explains, but for all its worth, everything makes sense.
In its own little corner of behemoth MMFF entries, which could probably go down in history as the best MMFF ever, ‘My Future You’ stands in the form of cute and truth. Truth that as long as we have love, we are in full control of our lives, if we are willing to work on it, if we are willing to wait for the perfect time.
