‘MAY-DECEMBER-JANUARY’ is a different kind of love triangle film written by National Artist Ricky Lee and directed by Mac Alejandre.
This is the story of Claire (Andrea del Rosario), a single mother to 17-year old Pol (Gold Aceron) who sacrificed her writing career for a more stable job after her son is diagnosed to have an unusual cardiac condition.
Pol is a straight-acting gay. He comes out to his mom and confesses his sexual preference to her. Claire tells him she already knows about it and accepts him for what he is.
Pol is very close to his best friend, Migoy (Kych Minemoto), and is also secretly in love with him but he suppresses it.
Things get complicated when Migoy confesses to Claire that he is in love with her. And she reciprocates it even if Migoy is much younger than her.
Pol is crushed when he finds out that his mom and his object of affection are having a love affair.
Claire gets alarmed when she learns that she and her son are both in love with the same guy and tries to call it quits with Migoy.
This is as far as we’ll go in sharing what the film is all about as anything else would surely be a spoiler.
Suffice it to say that the film is a delicately, sensitively told family and love story that is both heartbreaking and heartwarming and surprisingly, has a very commercial traditional happy ending that concludes in front of the altar.
This is not the usual coming of age film for gay character as Pol here has no coming out problems.
Unlike Vilma Santos who has difficulty accepting his gay son in "In My Life", Pol's mom quickly embraces his sexual preference and even makes suggestions for him to find a date and even tells him to use a condom and practice safe sex.
The characters here have secrets but they don’t cause any major trouble as they’re quickly revealed and shared with their loved ones. And they all quickly accept each other’s supposedly earth shaking revelations.
The well crafted film is set in Baguio and the cinematography superbly captures the beauty of the locale, with its stunning aerial drone shots that include wonderful night scenes.
The music is also splendid, never intrusive and really heightens the important scenes.
Ricky Lee’s screenplay introduces the characters succinctly with a dose of humor and Mac Alejandre’s storytelling is smooth, fluid and very involving.
The acting of the three leads are uniformly splendid.
Andrea del Rosario delivers a career-defining performance in what’s definitely the most challenging role she has played in her attire career.
She achingly captures the nuances of her role. At first, she is offended by Migoy’s declaration of love for her but you could see she’s also excited by the prospect of having a new romance as she’s been loveless since her son’s dad left them.
Then, you can feel her angst when she finds out she and her son are in love with the same guy.
Kych Minemoto proves he can do straight roles after playing effeminate characters in “Gameboys” and “PaThirsty”. But it is Gold Aceron who will melt your heart as the ill-fated gay son.
After playing a very macho role as the randy Peeping Tom in “Scorpio Nights 3”, Gold is remarkable in his understated portrayal of Pol.
You can’t help but feel compassion for him as he pines for his forbidden love and you’d really wish there’s still more life for him beyond the closet.