JULDAN B.

ORDESTA GRADE 11- OLMSTED

REACTION PAPER
Hello, Love, Goodbye

“Hello, Love, Goodbye” is now one of the highest grossing films in the Philippine industry under the direction of
Cathy Garcia-Molina featuring the first pair up of Kapamilya Kathryn Bernardo and Kapuso Alden Richards. It
was indeed a successful project for a new tandem. (Pep,2019)

Joy works as a domestic helper (DH) in Hong Kong. To augment her earnings, Joy also actively engages in
her buy-and-sell business every Sunday, and even takes on a second job at night as a waitress.She
desperately needs funds not only to send back home, but also to finance her dream of flying off to Canada to
practice nursing, her original course.When she met and fell in love with the charismatic bartender Ethan, Joy
was faced with a critical choice whether to stay for love, or leave to follow her dreams.

Kathryn Bernardo again worked with the same intensity of acting, which won her the Best Actress award
last year for "The Hows of Us”(Star Magic , 2017) , to portray Joy. Because of her extreme dedication to her
family, Joy was a joyless person focused only on her fulfilling her dreams of bringing her family back together
again. Even if she was in the company of her kooky fellow DH friends, Joy barely smiled as a no-nonsense
workaholic whose every minute of the day was spent in the pursuit of earning money.

I only knew Alden Richards before as the male half of the Aldub love team, where he really did not do too
much aside from looking cute. Richards as Ethan was actually deglamorized in a way he did not exactly look
like the Alden of Aldub. Even then, though, the camera loves his face so much that there wasn't any bad
angles to him no matter how simple his clothes are or how windswept his hair is. Based on the screams his
handsome closeups elicited among the ladies as he delivered his pick-up lines, he was doing very well in
getting them thrilled and excited.

Because Bernardo was always in serious heavy drama mode practically throughout the film, it was up to
Richards to stir up the romance part of the equation. This movie was actually more of a vehicle for Richards to
display his versatility in acting to a new set of Kapamilya fans who were not too familiar with him and his talents
before. He was the one who lightened up the mood of the heavy scenes with his comic antics. On the other
end, he was also very effective in those touching dramatic scenes with his family, as well as those scenes
where Ethan was trying to convince Joy to stay in Hong Kong with him.
 Kakai Bautista, Lovely Abella, and Maymay Entrata played Joy's funny friends, Sally, Gina and Mary Dale.
Joross Gamboa and Jeffrey Tam played Ethan's funny friends, Jhim and Carlo. Maricel Laxa-Pangilinan
returns to the big screen as Joy's mother Lita, who worked as a DH in Hong Kong before Joy did, while
William Lorenzo played her father Celso left back home. Lito Pimentel played Ethan's invalid father Mario,
while Jameson Blake played his disillusioned younger brother Edward. Cantonese actress Pang Mei Sheung
stole her scenes playing Mrs. Chung, a delightful grandmother with dementia Joy took care of. Nevertheless,
Hello, Love, Goodbye is still fine entertainment, one that doesn’t dumb down the issues it puts forward for the
sake of a standard happy ending.

It is handsomely made and consistently acted. Bernardo inhabits the overworked domestic helper who is
pushed to being angry at the world quite seamlessly. Richards, on the other hand, manages to transform his
happy-go-lucky ladies’ man into a believable hopeless romantic. There is ample chemistry. However, it's clear
that Bernardo is better at playing the oppressed woman pushing for independence rather than a lover to just
another leading man. She is more effective when in a huff, than in love.

Travelling to Hong Kong may not exactly be the best idea now because of its current political turmoil, but
this film reminded us why this was a favorite honeymoon destination care of the beautiful cinematography. As
with other Filipino rom-coms, the romantic musical soundtrack also set the proper mood of their scenes.
Director Cathy Garcia-Molina is really a master on how to elicit romantic thrills between her stars. No matter
how cheesy the lines may seem on paper, when you hear them spoken in the actual scene, they work.

The title alone already pretty much gave us a gist of the story, but we stay on to enjoy the chemistry of
Bernardo and Richards as a new romantic pairing, as well as to find out what Joy's final decision was going to
be regarding her dilemma.

However, the script also brought to life the various real problems OFWs experience in Hong Kong,
especially with regards to sacrificing family unity and risking illegal activities for their dreams of material wealth.
This is a movie that tells us that tough choices need to be made, and these choices need to be respected in
the name of love so I encourage all the people to watch this movie because a lot of lessons we get from this
movie.