Meet My Angel (2021)

Good, but a missed opportunity.

I really want to give this a 10, but I can't. The acting in this is better than any BL I can think of. All three performers deliver powerful performances, with Kaleb Ong as a standout. Enzo Santiago is as good as ever, and you might be surprised by Gio Emprese, who usually plays pathetic "comic" relief sexual predators, but here is wonderful as a deeply spiritual man put in a painful situation that he has to weather with grace and love.

The technical faults in this are inexcusable. The sound is terrible, the direction mediocre at best, tending towards melodrama in a story that that is already dramatic enough in content and in the strength of the acting.

The cinematography is also inexcusable. Half the shots feature people obscured by plants that are in the foreground, so it's not like the cinematographer could have missed them. If it was intentional, then I would ask, "Is this really what you want to do for a living?" There's a shot that occurs after Kaleb had been making me cry for 20 straight minutes that is so unintentionally funny that I burst out laughing. It involves a very critical moment in the series that represents a serious and spiritual moment, but it's a shot through Enzo's spread legs at a kneeling Kaleb - that's D/s sexual, which I suppose is appropriate for a gay boy and his gay angel. In gay angel porn.

The editing is also problemmatic, with scenes that would otherwise have been powerful dragged out so long that they're drained of energy and start to make you uncomfortable and feel sorry for Enzo, because they're almost all his. There's only one really long scene that had to be long, and it's doing a rosary, which the Catholics watching are already aware take forever, and the scene is really cute and funny.

If this had average BL acting, I wouldn't be writing this at all, because I would have dropped it half way through the first episode. But because the acting is a solid 10+, I feel comfortable recommending this, but just be prepared for a story that will make you cry, partly because you're moved by the story and the actors, and partly because your ears are bleeding due to the awful sound. It's worth it just for Kaleb - I'd watch anything he's in.

Warning: Do not watch the end credits scene, unless you want a beautiful story with a perfect ending reduced to a 1980s era sitcom. It's so bad and cringeworthy in every way (except how hot Enzo looked in it, but you can just google him) that I sat gaping at my screen and wondering if I really saw what I just saw. If you read the words "5 months after", you've gone too far, but there's still time to stop. It's up to you.

Outtakes begin at 32:40.

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Thinking about Life, and Love

I have really mixed emotions about this series. No one should watch it expecting to finding fluffy BL content. It is much more in the tradition of Pinoy LGBT cinema. Taking place on a sunlit farm, it is not literally dark, but the subject matter is dark indeed -- especially if, like me, you are not much of a believer.

The Good Points:

-- The story makes you really think about life, and love and hope (or the absence of hope) and what it means to confront all of those challenges as a gay guy. Some seriously heavy stuff. On balance, I thought this was one of the strongest points in the series -- it doesn't paper over the issues, but makes you think about them and about what you really believe. It also frames these issues in a context of Christian/Catholic belief, which is obviously spot on for the Philippines, but maybe not for everyone.

-- All three of the actors were excellent. Kaleb Ong is clearly a very talented actor and I hope to see more of him in different kinds of roles in the future. His progression from hopeless depression to caring and loving, even while staring death in the face, is the major theme of the plot, and he pulls it off quite well. (The scene where he jumps out of bed, and up into Enzo's arms was so full of joy......what a contrast to the suicide scene.) I also really liked Gio Emprese, whose character Peter is a beautiful man -- so giving of himself to his hopeless nephew, and yet torn by so many doubts and fears. At first I kept asking myself what his motivation could be -- and then later in the series we discover it is purely religious/philosophical. Anyway, I thought Gio's performance was very convincing.

-- Those are the pros. There are unfortunately also many cons. Poor sound quality, which particularly grated during the loud scenes when the characters berated God and each other. Very slow pacing. I'm afraid many people will switch off before they get to the last few episodes where the whole point is discussed -- I thought the scene where Angelo and Damon are talking, in bed, about what it means to be gay, is the best scene of the series (and no one moves!!) and it is a shame that I think many viewers will never get there. The end tries to provide a bit of uplift, but I think it fails just because it turns a drama into a cartoon (figuratively). And it all happens against the background info that Damon has suffered through five more months of debilitating disease and weakness before finding rest. I did not find the cartoon ending at all reassuring.....

So my recommendation is to watch this one if you are in the mood to accept some serious contemplation. Even better if you have some level of belief yourself, because then the struggles of the actors will seem more relatable. But don't expect a polished, high-quality production.

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