Withdrawn and ashamed of his affliction, he is quiet and oftentimes sullen, keeping his condition a secret except from Shana. He can even make life easier if he could just simply explain to everybody that he suffers from face blindness.īut de Guzman’s Lio has no time for fake pleasantries. He could have saved himself all that social tension if he were the friendly type, faking a cheerful response to unrecognizable but friendly faces that greet him.
The film adds another layer of conflict by giving Lio a difficult personality on top of his medical condition. Seeing the world through Lio’s eyes is enough to understand what he’s going through and how he deals with his face blindness. Here, the film smartly relies on visual storytelling, never resorting to spoon-feeding or over-explaining. The dialogue is sometimes trite and cheesy, but it helps that the film focuses more on visuals and atmosphere to create emotions - a complete opposite of the last film de Guzman starred in, the dialogue-heavy That Thing Called Tadhana.
Ruiz manages to keep Lio’s predicament serious and consistently laced with tension. It did cross my mind plenty of times, as Lio’s world of ever-changing faces is a hairline away from becoming comical. While watching the movie, it’s hard not to imagine if this will work better as a comedy. This allows you to experience face blindness first-hand, with the faces of people around Lio literally looking different in the next minute. Ruiz made a clever decision to use different actors for important characters to provide a more palpable sense of confusion. JOEL Ruiz, the film’s director, with lead stars Rhian Ramos and JM de Guzman. Ruiz never allows you to veer away from Lio’s gaze, making you acutely sympathetic to his everyday dilemma - from ordering coffee in his favorite cafe to responding to his officemates, or bumping into a cheerful acquaintance at a 7-eleven. How does he cope with his disability? How does he socialize or keep a job? Ruiz takes conscious effort in giving the audience an emotional and stressful outlook from Lio’s perspective. Sure, you can fall and stay in love with someone unattractive, but can you stay in love with a face that is ever changing? Kung Paano Siya Nawala examines whether a romantic relationship with a prosopagnosic can survive, and if true love can transcend physical appearances. Lio’s medical condition is the looming conflict in this absorbing romantic tale written and directed by Joel Ruiz. The girl is Shana (Rhian Ramos), a beautiful and reckless barista who falls in love with Lio, fighting her way into the life of a guy who keeps forgetting what she looks like. The guy is Lio (JM de Guzman), a prosopagnosic, or someone who suffers from face blindness - a medical condition that prevents him from recognizing faces, including his own family’s. TBA Studios brings a love story made complicated by a cognitive disorder.
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