Bela and JC’s wrong kind of love

We always think of love as something to save or help us. But my takeaway from this film is that love is the reason for my character to be broken apart so she can fix herself by herself. Love doesn’t only put you together, it also breaks you apart.

LANI, played by actress Bela Padilla, enters into the life of Kai (Santos) in the midst of his recuperation from a failed relationship. Don’t expect JC Santos and Bela Padilla to have a second go for their puppy love. They might have made people fall in love with them as the shy and stuttering university student Fidel and his crush, the confident rocker chick Stella, in last year’s hit, 100 Tula Para Kay Stella.

The duo returns to the big screen, but they say, hold your horses. They are returning but people should not set their hopes up for a feel-good romance. It didn’t happen before with Fidel and Stella and just to be on the safe side, viewers are advised to manage their expectations.

Writer-director Jason Paul Laxamana described The Day After Valentine’s: “In a nutshell, it’s about a girl who falls in love with a boy who is broken and self-harming. He just came from a failed relationship. Eventually, the girl falls in love with this guy and now she’s the one who’s falling apart because of the seemingly unreciprocated love.”

The Day After Valentine’s is their second team-up as leads but, like 100 Tula Para Kay Stella, it is bound to tug at people’s hearts and, perhaps, even more.

Laxamana issues a fair warning to those who hope for a respite from heartbreaking films.

After all, he is the same man who penned and directed 100 Tula. Those who have watched the said movie know too well how Fidel and Stella concluded their “romance” with the scenic Mount Arayat as witness of a what-could-have-been story for kindred souls too afraid to express their feelings.

His muse, Padilla, agrees. While she will always have a special place in her heart for Stella as it made her popular, her Lani pushed her capabilities as an actress.

JC Santos and Bela Padilla reunite with director Jason Paul Laxamana for this year’s Pista ng Pelikulang Pilipino entry The Day After Valentine’s. “Stella has a special place in my heart. She made me known to people as an actor. I liked playing her because it was fun to play her with all her ‘tattooes’ and complexities. But admittedly, I felt more hurt while doing The Day After Valentine’s because Lani was much more difficult to portray. So, if people will like my performance here, it will be more fulfilling for me,” related the actress in a mix of Filipino and English during the movie’s recent press conference held in Quezon City.

Pain and angst are the way to go for Laxamana. The director admits to purposely going for stories that are not “meet-cute” as Bela describes most popular love stories.

“For me starting with 100 Tula, I think my scripts have started to focus on the wrong types of love. I’ve tried doing rom-coms [romantic comedies]. I idealized the concept of love and romance. But I figured out, it wasn’t me. My life is closer to these themes and interpretation of love,” confessed Laxamana.

Santos, who played the half-Hawaiian Kai and sported a long hair in the movie, expressed his admiration for his director’s work.

“What’s beautiful about our director’s characters is that they are designed to be not perfect. There’s no moral high ground in the story,” explained the actor.

His co-star added that more than the love story, The Day After Valentine’s has more meat than all the fluff and fan service typical in most love stories. If bullying was tackled in 100 Tula with Fidel’s character being a stutterer, Kai’s “self-harming” tendencies and its repercussions will most probably be talked about.

Bela and Laxamana’s answers on what makes their new collaboration different from other movies, including their very first team up, answers this question in a way.

“There’s nothing cute about the topics we discussed here. It’s also socially relevant because we touched a lot of topics here that the youth doesn’t want to talk about. That’s why JC and I accepted this. I feel that this goes beyond a love story,” Bela explained.

Laxamana agreed: “Although there is a touch of romance here, for me as a writer, it’s about individual recuperation or healing. So that is probably one thing that sets it apart.”

Amid the influx of films with characters involved in a brewing romance, Bela, known in showbiz as among the more insightful and articulate, shares her takeaway from the movie.

“We always think of love as something to save or help us. But my takeaway from this film is that love is the reason for my character to be broken apart so she can fix herself by herself. Love doesn’t only put you together; it also breaks you apart,” said Bela.

With a “more darker and mature” material than 100 Tula, all three are hopeful that people would still be able to appreciate it. Laxamana revealed that he purposely wrote The Day After Valentine’s as a follow-up and entry at this year’s edition of the Pista ng Pelikulang Pilipino (PPP), currently running until 21 August in cinemas nationwide.

Does he feel the pressure to top 100 Tula, which Viva Films reported to have earned P80 million at the box-office last year? This in addition to the performance of his other film, Bakwit Boys, another entry at this year’s PPP.

“Starting this year, I started to think less of the box-office performance. Of course I’m happy for my producer when my film performs well in the box-office. But for the sake of my mental health, I put priority behind the meaning of my projects,” the director ended.

The Day After Valentine’s is produced by Viva Films. It is rated PG by the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board and Graded A by the Cinema Evaluation Board.

ACTOR JC Santos, writer-director Jason Paul Laxamana and actress Bela Padilla during the film’s launch.