By CORHEINNE JOYCE B. COLENDRES
LOVE IS often about risking things for an indefinite prize. No matter how much preparation one has done, nothing truly prepares a person for the things that love has in store. This idea materializes in the story of Jennifer (Roxanne Barcelo), a beach resort owner who is still recovering from a heartbreak prompted by her last love, and Viktor (Will Devaughn), a man in search of his estranged mother.
The two cross paths in Jennifer’s resort, and with a couple of poorly-built sequences that provided a little context about the film itself, the pair soon falls in love.
An entry to the Cine Lokal, I Found My Heart in Santa Fe is only commendable for beautifully featuring Santa Fe, Bantayan Island, Cebu. The film experiments with various wide shots to establish the sceneries of Santa Fe—with a heavy focus in their pristine white beaches, and the pulsating activities such as water sports, and the dynamic nightlife in the beaches—that appears to be more appealing than the film itself.
The film maintains its tropic and calming vibe through vibrant color schemes that may sometimes fall flat, yet it is complemented by the overall lightness and humor that the plot tries to maintain. But the story’s inconsistent weaving of the events and the unnecessary presence of certain shots—children and teenagers dancing to a poorly-choreographed dance routine, which is then followed by a sequence of Jennifer and her friends simply walking through the market—threatens to bring down the film. It becomes more like another mundane and generic film that is flocked by the public.
Directed by Bona Fajardo, I Found My Heart in Santa Fe’s only redeeming quality circulates around the idea of new beginnings, and risking one’s heart despite the uncertainties. The pair maps their way out of various obstacles to search for what their hearts truly want. The initial parts of the film feature Jennifer and Viktor as two lost and lonely souls who have lived their lives with pent-up negative feelings. Their lives prior to meeting each other were always coated in a thin veil of uncertainty. Yet as the story progresses, the pair soon blooms as people who have become sure of what they want and what they can both become. F
