Love Stuck (2024)

needs a ghost

There's a sort of Thai movie I often adore - an unrushed two hours, with the first half or so exploring the wee world they've created before they start to reveal its poignancy. Add in a ghost and maybe it's about grief and loss. Not crowded or heavy in the way of many western films, but gently making space for those emotions and surrounding them in kindness and warmth.

Love Stuck follows that general pattern - the set-up of two people wandering around the city showing each other cool things was perfect for that - but the delivery of its emotions in the latter half felt in your face and saccharine. Not the acting, that was fine. Or the way the Big Thing was telegraphed well in advance. But the music which was both cloying musically and had lyrics that spelled everything out - in English, granted, but it wasn't the way Thai production companies tend to use English lyrics. Some of the dialogue and other directorial choices. Thais usually do this sort of thing so much better.

I watched the US original to see if this remake was following its lead there. A few things really leapt out watching them back to back. One was how the early events they showed each other involved bad things happening to other people, which was commented on - "We really shouldn't laugh at other people's misfortunes" "But it is objectively hilarious" (they weren't). Does it say something about Thais and US Americans that the Thai remake chose to stay well clear of that? I'm an outsider looking in at both cultures so I don't know. Given how much else the movies had in common, it felt pertinent. Also the amount of casual destruction the US pair wreaked to amuse themselves.

Another bit I don't know what to make of is that while both wrote the young woman as the smarter/better in school of the pair, the US version included language like "Mark was right"/"I was wrong" from the young woman, with no reciprocity from the young man, and had the solution to their problem solved by his early input, information gathering and suggestion + her working alone to bring it about whereas the Thai handling let it be her smarts + them working together. There was more, including a bit in their romantic arc. All in all, her being smart was a threat to the man in the US version but not the Thai.

The music in the original wasn't so obvious about what we were supposed to feel but the beginning was more cynical. It's like they (Amazon execs? director and screenwriters?) just picked up the entire emotional arc of Love Stuck as a whole to move it away from the cynicism (that much is understandable for a Thai remake) even though it turned the second half poignancy to syrup. I'm at a loss for how else to explain or understand this. I've not seen anything from Thailand make its emotions so trite or saccharine. Perhaps the whys are US corporate execs looking to cash in on interest in Asian dramas? - the English language lyrics does suggest it was intended for a US audience.

Thai filmmakers and scriptwriters can handle emotion so well. Why they didn't in this, why it was more cloying and thus superficial than the US original feels very strange. From the other comments and some of the reviews, it works for many. But I can't recommend it. Not when there is so much better cinema from Thailand.

This needed a ghost - metaphorically - and the grounded, gentle Thai way of revealing the layers of emotions in this sort of story.

(Mid-level marks for "Story" because I had nowhere else to specify that my criticisms are about the way it was handled, rather than the plot itself.)

Read More

Good idea, enjoyable, but missed the mark

The concept of time loop has been done by so many series before, and this movie is the second iteration of another American title. But alas, it tries to do more and fell short of being a good rom-com with poor explanation and story pacing. The story starts out with our main character, Toy, who is doing wild things because he is in an infinite loop on last day of the year. Everyone around him is not aware of this to his frustration. That is one day when he meet our female lead, Vee, who is also aware of the loop also. And that seems like a plot to a good/innovative story. However, this is where many things seem to fell short.

First, Toy is very uneven. One day he is erratic. One day he is nice. One day he is very aware of little things. Another is totally clueless about his surrounding. It just seems to flip around conveniently without decent reasons or pace. Side stories with his family has some family-culture-touching moments, but feel like additions that lack cohesion to the main line. It just seems out of place and fixed by a simple, "because I am there and you succeed and become happy". It feels contrived.

For our female lead, Vee, her story is meant to be the key of the loop. They try to give little mysteries and hints, but it accidentally show the entire hand. Instead of focusing on her daily routine, giving simple monologue, and/or exploring her perspective, the first hint is already obvious to anyone who ever watch enough Jdrama. The movie could have split the focus into two different perspectives without giving away anythings until much later. Faulting this one on directors and screenwriters.

The science. Oh no. This one falls flat to the ground...badly It tries hard to blend "science" with fantasy using pseudo-random physics ideas, and not explain how it can happen. It never fully explain why Toy is in this time loop. It did not fully explain how/why they believe the way out is really the solution to the loop. It would have been much cleaner to just go with a random fantasy-mystic-god-alien-phenomenon as the reason. The viewers already know that this is a fantasy world.

I am a sucker for time-loop and time-travel story. However, this one ranks on a lower-middle side. They could skip the science. Improve the story pacing, instead of making Toy into a different person on a whim. Don't make him one day ungrateful, then nice overnight. The family members and the friend side-stories need to be flushed out. They feel pointless in this movie. The female lead needs to be expanded upon. Sadly, the fact that this is a remake made it more regrettable for the missed improvements.

Read More