Sigrid Andrea Bernardo’s movie ‘Under Parallel Skies’ thrives on little bursts of cuteness scattered throughout but falls flat in plot and character development. We follow a young Parin (Metawin Opas-iamkajorn), a rich Thai boy who travels to Hong Kong to find his estranged mother, only to fall in love with a hotel receptionist called Iris (Janella Salvador).
Parin is undoubtedly a spoiled brat for most parts of the film. We see him get drunk multiple times in the first quarter of the movie, almost always leading to Iris dragging him back to his hotel room as he cannot remember anything the next morning. I just couldn’t find anything about this character likable because he came off as irresponsible and ungrateful for half of the movie. I don’t understand why she felt obliged apart from having it be her job to put up with Parin, but even that shouldn’t have required her patience to go this far.
The most interesting part of this movie could have been Parin’s search for his mother. We are even fed lines like “Some people don’t want to be found.” But then this story fizzles out as we go along until it becomes all about Parin and Iris bickering at each other or being intimate over and over again without showing how any of these change Parin’s chances at finding his mother.
Janella Salvador carried this movie on her back. Her reactions were just so funny every time. I just wish they had done justice for her character and made her realize that she deserved much more than what she got. While you can argue that she is supposed to make Parin change, this is just not believable because when you hear the story it sounds like Iris will leave then he goes back into being reckless.
Though Janella herself did mention something during the premiere night I attended which I found very commendable about it. She talked about how they tried their best to shoot in non-touristy areas of Hong Kong for the production’s sake of feeling more organic. I really love it when productions do that. It did feel organic in terms of setting but this sense of naturalness fell short with the uninteresting characterization of Parin.
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