Ex Ex Lovers and the Final Product

My wife and I watched a Filipino movie in theaters, Ex Ex Lovers. My wife was a fan of the cast, and many of these actors and actresses were very popular decades ago, so nostalgia was a selling point. The story centers around two ex-couples reconnecting for their daughter’s wedding, and it started off well enough. However, somewhere around the middle, the movie started to bring about political messaging, and that is where I felt that the movie just fell apart. The messaging that was being brought to the audience negatively affected the story, in my opinion, leaving me confused and making it difficult to suspend disbelief. Crying tears of joy over a marriage annulment after seemingly reconnecting positively with an ex-spouse just came across bizarre and strange, for example.

Otherwise, there has been church stuff and writing stuff that has been taking up a lot of our time this week. Formatting The Mustard Prince to be put out in paperback has been quite the grind, not dissimilar to editing. It goes to show that the final product of anything takes a lot of work before being perfected and put to market. In movies, during the credits, we see so many names and companies, and that is because so much work behind the scenes and off-camera is being done. With a book, a lot of editing, re-writing, proofreading and formatting is being done so that the final product looks its best.

While getting to the final product is tough, there is only so much that can be done so that audiences will like the product. While there is luck in that, I feel that creators also make their own luck through hard work, grinding, perseverance, and perfecting.