FILMMAKER Crisanto Aquino attempts to offer a fresh take on Filipino romance in “My Future You,” the big-screen debut of love team Francine Diaz and Seth Fedelin — collectively known as “FranSeth” — by weaving time travel into the narrative.
The 109-minute feature unravels when Karen (played by Diaz), a real estate agent from Marikina, and Lex (played by Fedelin), an interior design graduate from Cebu City, connect through an online dating app after wishing upon a rare comet that appears only every 15 years.
Despite their communication being confined to the app, the two manage to build a relationship that transcends space and time.
From the outset, the film’s premise draws parallels with other romance sci-fi films blending time travel and meteorological phenomena, such as “Kimi no Na wa” (Your Name), similarities that Aquino deems “normal” and “not a big deal.”
Still, the integration of time travel and its impact on relationships is a departure from Aquino’s previous romance flicks such as “My Rebound Girl” (2016), “Write About Love” (2019), and “Instant Daddy” (2023).
In “My Future You,” Diaz delivers a poignant performance as a young woman from a broken family, grappling with feelings of abandonment and yearning for the past. Fedelin portrays the struggles of being an adopted child, navigating identity and belonging.
Family dynamics shape the characters’ decisions. Karen’s broken family and Lex’s adoptive background influence their shared desire to alter their past to create better outcomes. Yet, each attempt only leads to worse situations.
Through color grading, the film allows the audience to easily distinguish events from the past and the present: cool and dark tones represent scenes from the past, while warm and bright hues signal the present.
While not new, the use of a comet as a bridge between different timelines made for a clever narrative device. However, it appears as if the film struggled to grasp the mechanics of time travel itself — a crucial aspect of its overarching narrative — and ends up underdeveloping it.
As the film approaches time travel with wonder and caution, a stronger grounding and focus on the logic of time travel would have added depth and clarity to the plot. Instead, unresolved ambiguities shift the spotlight to Diaz and Fedelin’s chemistry, which remains the film’s primary draw.