Relationship Status

Though I don't quite remember when I exactly saw this movie, I haven't really got the chance to put it up here since then. Probably a month plus has passed since then and there wasn't proper chance for me to take my time and write it.

Anyways, amazingly enough my friend and I went to watch this Malaysian made movie and I personally got a shocker! Not to belittle Malaysian movie industry but I honestly felt that we haven't really made much progress with our stuff that I'd rather watch it in a cinema and feel good about it later on. However, this movie really blew me away.

 

The Plot

You’ve seen it everywhere. On TV, in the news, and even on T-shirts. And though its use has been seen in a couple of movies, not many films have been made about Facebook.
Which is what sets Relationship Status aside from other romantic dramas out there. True to its name, the film bases itself off the seven relationship Facebook settings (Single, Engaged, Married, Divorced, etc).

With each setting comes a different story, and like the social networking platform, they are connected to each other more closely than you can imagine.

The movie starts off with magazine writer Dave (Gavin Yap) being asked to write a column about Facebook. But his mind isn’t really on the job, as he spends a good lot of his time looking at Anna’s (his pseudo-girlfriend, played by Davina Goh) profile page. Anna doesn’t appear interested in taking their relationship to the next level, which includes changing her “Single” status to “In a Relationship”.

Dave then pans over to his flatmate, Jo (Khairil M Bahar), who has been moping about for the last three months, recovering from a nasty breakup. Annoyed with Jo’s emotional outbursts, Dave sets him up with a Facebook account, assuring his unwilling flatmate that networking will somehow make everything better.

The story also jumps over to other characters who are connected to Dave, in one way or the other.
One of them is his colleague Lee (Benji Lim), who proposes to his filmmaker girlfriend (Amanda Ang), much to the intense dislike of his sister Sarah (Adeline Ong).

Another is Selina (Susan Lankester), who finds out that her recently deceased husband’s Facebook account is still active. Overwhelmed by emotions and memories of her dead spouse, she tries all that she can to close it down.

“Relationship Status” is Khairil’s third feature film, with his first being “Ciplak”. Like the latter, it was developed on a shoestring budget. This one however, though written primarily in English, does have some Malay and even a little bit of Hokkien.

 
Though a somewhat serious romantic drama at its very base, the show has many light-hearted moments. It starts off well, with a generous sprinkling of witty banter, and comfortable chemistry between the characters involved.

There are also bits and pieces that make Relationship Status a little more complete, with examples of familial ties and even blissful ignorance. Another plus point to the film is its soundtrack selection, featuring local indie artistes Az Samad, Darren Ashley, OJ Law and so on.

The show can also be seen as a reflection of real life, with Facebook having the power to affect relationships, for better or for worse.


Well, who doesn't go through a relationship roller-coaster? Everybody does but since the involvement of the social networks, such as Facebook, Twitter and etc have totally changed the landscape of our lives. This movie was only aired on selected TGV cinemas though I don't quite understand why not GSC, but it was really worth it.

A movie with a lot of messages in it though the budget of the movie was really quite embarrassing as it did seem quite a low quality movie. If there was a little more spent, I really believe that this movie would really have created some noise amongst the movie-goers but sadly many of my friends didn't even know that this movie was up.

What happened to the marketing? If this is how we are going to product our stuffs, I won't be surprised that Malaysian Movie industry continues to take more hits. Other than that, those who haven't watch this, go and watch it now!!! Just kidding, but make sure you don't miss this 1 out!

Till the next update, ciao!