In My Life (2009)
Shirley is a woman who wants to be in control of everything. Working as a librarian in a public school, a firm "Sshhh!" from her makes the students tremble in fear. But in her family, her unwarranted intervention in the lives of her children and their families keeps her emotionally detached from them. Realizing that she has lost the command she once had, she goes to New York to reunite with Mark , her estranged gay son who is now suffering from colon cancer. But Shirley doesn't know this and living with Mark in New York comes with a cost. She has to live with her son's lover Noel who is an illegal immigrant. Everything is going right until circumstances forces Shirley to go back to the Philippines. Now that she's back with her family, she realizes that something is wrong she is not happy.
Watch Trailer
Cast
Similar titles
Reviews
The Worst Film Ever
Sadly Over-hyped
Pretty Good
The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful
During the 1st few years of Star Cinema, I was impressed and I religiously watch every movie they make. Why? Because they try to make every movie different even if the main point is to still make it commercial. But lately, I've noticed a trend in their movies and it's becoming more formulaic and usually the resolution is in the last 3 minutes of the movie which I couldn't help but feel the story's manipulated.However, with this movie, it's like Star Cinema went back to its roots. What I like best about this movie is it is very personal and it branches out from the usual plot lines that we're used to. Kudos to the promotions and marketing guys for the effort to make the movie look very commercial.The movie revolves around Shirly's rediscovery in the most unexpected point in her life. In one of the scenes where she tries to give a reason why she became the person that she is, she said that it was from the years of trying to be tough for her kids. And I felt it captured the angst of most single moms who are in their 50s. I grew up with a single mom and being tough is sometimes being synonymous to being hard. And I could only imagine from the years of trying to be tough, you become someone you never really intended to. You focus so much on protecting someone that you hardly notice that the person you're protecting has evolved into someone else.I generally liked how the story progressed, however, there are some scenes that I presume were added to make it more commercial.In terms of acting, Vilma as the lead gave her usual tour-de-force performance although there were some scenes that I felt that she was out of character. And while Luis Manzano delivered one great scene to a perfection, there were some slip ups during light moments that he seem to forget that he's playing a character. Although, hats off to him because he's much more convincing playing a gay character than John Lloyd who's a much accomplished actor. John Lloyd, as usual is great although the only flaw in his performance was that he lacked that gay demeanor that Luis had. But the sincerity and the intelligence of the portrayal was there. My suspicion is that in preparation for the role, he just tried to play it as it is and deliver the character as if the lover was female.All in all, this movie is certainly a welcome break from the heavy melodramas, slapstick comedies and light romance movies Star Cinema has been producing lately.