‘SEASONS’ is a romantic dramedy produced by Regal Multimedia and shown on Netflix. Directed by Easy Ferrer, the story is credited to lead actress Lovi Poe, but the full script is written by Dwein Baltazar. It hit number one on its opening week and stayed on the top ten list for quite sometime.

Lovi as the lead character, Charlie, is also the film’s narrator. The film’s basic concept, about long time best friends who don’t realize that they really are in love with each other, is nothing new and is practically a sub-genre in romantic films.

In Hollywood films, the best example is “When Harry Met Sally” (where Meg Ryan was at her best, but where is she now?).

Among local films, the best one is “Kung Ako Na Lang Sana”, which ends happily for Sharon Cuneta and Aga Muhlach.

But “Seasons” belongs more to the genre of films with unhappy endings, like “100 Tula Para kay Stella”, “Meet Me in St. Gallen” and our fave, “I’m Drunk, I Love You”.

Lovi is Charlie and the movie starts with her singing in a bar when Carlo as Kurt appears. Then Lovi goes into a voice over narration telling about their past as platonic friends who call each other Pangs, short for Panget.

Lovi is worried over Carlo’s not having a girlfriend, so she meddles with his romantic affairs and looks for one for him in a dating app. Then she sees a pretty cake shop owner, Jane (Sarah Edwards), and does everything to introduce her to Carlo as she thinks Sarah is just a perfect match for him.

The two quickly cozy up to each other and Carlo tells Lovi to also open herself up to her co-worker, Hans (Jolo Estrada). Lovi makes an effort to accommodate him, but Jolo quickly notices that she really carries the torch for Carlo.

Yes, Lovi herself realizes that she’s getting jealous seeing Carlo playing beautiful music with Sarah, even making herself look stupid when Carlo and Sarah come home to his apartment to make out, but Lovi turns out to be there and even tries to hide, but Carlo and Sarah see her, interrupting their rendezvous and wrecking their relationship.

For lack of anything to say in trying to defend herself, Lovi lies and says she’s pregnant. Carlo then helps her to find the guy who makes her preggy and the movie turns into a road movie in Ilocos. But we all know where this is going as Lovi is just a plain liar.

Both Lovi and Carlo give competent, winning performances in their respective roles, powering the film long after it has lost its steam. The movie is just so loooong for this kind of material.

After a while, we keep on wishing for it to end soon. But it just goes on and on. We’ve really lost our interest in the movie’s last half hour after Lovi did all sort of stupid things and we’ve also lost our patience in rooting for her.

Lovi’s annoying Charlie makes us lose our sympathy for her. We watched it with our eldest apo and she keeps on praying: “I hope they won’t end up with each other.”

And we felt the same because Lovi’s character is just so flawed. She has gone to bed with her past boyfriends and has made so many mistakes in judgments. We don’t look for a perfect heroine, but this one is just too manipulative and has made too many wrong decisions and choices.