Phuean (mai) sanit

I like the movie and watched it more than once

Thanks to the director who is also the film scriptwriter, the brilliant screenplay has interesting & touching twist and turns and great (sometimes even humourous) dialogue/movie lines.

It is really a great film about joe, the ingenious screenplay gradually reveal how the ordinary but sunny character guy (joe) is loved and missed by his friends and deeply by Bokeh around him

The main characters are all acting great. Tithiya shines in her acting as lovely Bokeh in the movie who has deep and subtle feeling for Joe.

Also tributes to the other supporting cast: the movie team, ohm, liew, moms of pae and joe, and the principal in the movie.

A lively, entertaining and heartfelt story about youth, film-making and friendships. Anthony Buisseret shines in the leading role as a boy who has to grapple with his rash decision to make a short film that is more for selfish reasons than altruistic ones. Although the film's humour can get silly at times, what is youth but the heady rush of having fun with friends? That being said, this film is moving in equal measure and will tug at your heartstrings. The plot twist makes it quite thought-provoking and interesting. All in all, this film which is Thailand's submission for the 96th Academy Awards is a sweet and enjoyable film to watch.

The film is brilliant and I think the director executed the film in a fresh and touching way. This is not a cliche story and I loved every twist of the story. I laughed and cried soooooo hard at the same time.

If you are a movie lover or love shooting videos, you will resonate deeply with this film. My personal opinion is that I like teenage school romance drama with both charming leads, and although this is not a romance film, I still find both actors are lovely and charming.

To anyone reading this: cherish your friends. I want to say to my old friends that although we are no longer in contact, I also want to thank you for being my friends and created many wonderful memories.

Damn that wrecked me in such a clever, unexpected way.

I have seen plenty of Asian melodramas, and you kind of see them coming, you know the regular beats, but this one just hits you over and over again when you least expect it. I'll say it's clever. Which you certainly don't expect of your average teen movie. But this is so much more than that. Yeah, it's got your cheesy lines about dreams and the future, but that's just a minor part and even that hits pretty hard in the context of everything that happens. Let's just say the script is really clever with its twists and tonal shifts and maybe the only thing that didn't resonate was the forced comedy in the beginning, but that was short-lived too. The successive revelations in the flashbacks are heartwarming or heartbreaking, sometimes at the same time.

Thailand is having a good year on Netflix. Also, Oscar submission damn!!!

And it turns out Pae had actually been a friend to Joe. It was the beginning of something beautiful. Damn Joe, why d'you have to die on us like that?

There are movies whose trailers conveniently summarise the entire plot. When I first saw the trailer before the screening of The Boy and the Heron, I could connect the dots and map out the plot: a bitter student named Pae (Anthony Buisseret) is befriended by Joe (Pisitpol Ekaphongpisit) much to his displeasure. Soon, Joe dies in a car accident and Pae sees the perfect opportunity to get into the good book by making a short film to commemorate Joe's death even though he has no real connection to Joe. To complicate matters, Joe's friend Bokeh (Thitiya Jirapornsilp) knows Pae is using Joe's demise for selfish reasons.

But I still wanted to see the movie because there is something about character redemption arcs that I love. Seeing a bad person break good sounded like a nice way to spend 2 hours, but I was totally blown away and completely bowled over by a third act twist I never saw coming. The trailer wisely never gave away any hint of this and when the revelation dropped the movie became emotionally complex, my favourite territory in narratives.

Even if the initial setup of and the cascading events are formulaic, there is something affable and relatable about the characters. It reminded me of the friends I once had and the friendships forged during that period of life were never cosmic events. They tend to be based on common and aligned interests, and defined by fun and social activities. I am still friends with many, friends I made in my adolescent years.

The first two acts of the movie coast along like carefree laughter in the school canteen and it is also a love letter to cinema. Then it evolves to examine the nature of friendship between teenagers - like what constitutes a close friend, how does others define you as a good friend, how you define friendship for yourself and how one can never truly know another whom you called a friend. I loved some of ideas of friendship presented like a scene in a bus when Pae shares with Joe a secret he is ashamed of and Joe affirms him by saying he is a friend to him from this moment onwards and not from that episode in the past.

The performances by the two leads are fantastic and even Ekaphongpisit in the flashback sequences is great. They are very natural and wacky in their roles. In them I see myself in the past, a time when the pressures of life still do not have a stranglehold on me.

Not Friends is one of those rare movies that trod lightfootedly towards a pre-ordained destination, then suddenly swerved unexpectedly from the left field and totally charmed my socks off and even earned some tears. It also happens to be chosen by Thailand to compete in next year's Oscars in the Best International Film category. I doubt it will land up in the long list because it is not the type of film the Academy typically votes for. Don't let that stop you from checking it out and it might remind you of a time when you have friends like Pae, Bokeh and Joe.