Listening to a Cup of Joe album on the LRT on a rainy evening is a recipe for rumination and limerence. Then I stumbled on a fan edit of a song to a screenpack of a seminarian promising God he’d devote himself to his faith to save the girl he loves. That sealed my evening plans. Cinema has no shortage of love confessions in the rain, but Carlo Aquino’s Jeff, alone in that tiny chapel, makes the usual kiss in a downpour look lazy.
I Love Lizzy is shot like a holiday home video. The camera is handheld and loose, following the characters around. Pair that with a sun-soaked, saturated colour grade, and Bicol’s tropical landscape becomes a nostalgic daydream. You can almost feel the humidity on your skin, the way the air thickens before rain.
The chemistry between the leads is lukewarm, I’ll admit, and you can see the gap in craft between Aquino and Imperial. Somehow that imbalance serves the film. Not everyone arrives at a scene with the same equipment, the same history, the same capacity to perform. It also turns our attention to the film’s other relationships: Jeff and his vows, Lizzy and her past. Looking out over the volcano, Jeff says, “Even if you’re looking at the same thing, what you see will always change depending on your perspective.” Love, loss, and life look different even to the same person at a different time of day.
At 90 minutes, the film doesn’t overstay its welcome, though I wanted more time with these people. That’s probably the point. Holiday romances are short. The character development happens between itineraries, in the candid moments between landmarks when nobody’s performing. Some people you meet while you’re escaping are messengers. They arrive, deliver what you need, and leave. The film lets its characters be themselves, and the consequences feel earned. It understands that longing is more cinematic than fulfilment. We want the wanting itself. The ache is the point.
Most forbidden-love stories need a villain: strict parents, class, religion, tradition. I Love Lizzy refuses one. Faith is never oppressive here, and desire is never sinful. Both are legitimate, and they compete for the same space in one man. You can’t resent his calling, because you understand why Jeff chose it. You can’t resent the love, because you understand why Lizzy inspires it. The film also has no patience for romantic destiny, the promise that love finds a way for people who are meant to be. Sometimes two people are compatible and circumstances still win. The tragedy has nothing to do with how much they love each other. Love doesn’t run on a checklist.
Because the film withholds explanation, we fill the gaps. Religious viewers will see sacrifice, romantics will see soulmates, sceptics will see repression. I caught myself filling Jeff’s silences with my own history of impossible choices. Decades of romantic cinema have trained us to want couples to end up together, and the film exploits that. I found myself hoping he’d abandon his vows, then wondering why I’d assumed romantic fulfilment was the morally superior ending. The film never challenges Jeff’s beliefs. It challenges ours.
The most intimate moments come out of conversation, which suggests a definition of love that values presence over performance. Contemporary romances tend to treat emotional honesty as full disclosure, with everything confessed, explained and resolved. I Love Lizzy leaves love partly unknowable. Its real question is whether every meaningful interruption deserves to become permanent, and it’s wise enough not to answer.
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