Love Matters

Hello!!! How did all of you spend your Valentine's? :D

After thinking for an hour on what to blog for today, I decided to write on a movie I watched during the CNY break. Love Matters. Since this week I learnt about communications in relationships. I guess this is suitable. :)

Here's a synopsis from the official website (http://www.lovematters.com.sg/en/home.asp), incase there are some of you who have yet to watch it. :

“Love Matters” is a movie revolves around three main protagonists –

52 year old Tan Bo Seng, 17 year old Benny his teenage son and 36 year old Jeremy, Bo Seng’s ‘adopted’ brother – and their accidental journey in seeking and keeping love and happiness.

Bo Seng (Henry Thia) leads a routine life. Attempts to revive the passion with his wife Jia Li (Yeo Yann Yann) cannot improve their stale love life.

Jeremy (Jack Lim) lives a colourful life, colourful in reference to his long list of girlfriends. “Never to commit” is his motto for love.

Benny (Alex Leong) has just school life, his only vice is anything to do with the computer, his only distraction is his crush, Jennifer (Natalli), his classmate’s girl.

Bo Seng & Jia Li the old fashion couple has more misses than hits in the love department and a series of madness spin off one night …

Jeremy meets Benny’s teacher, Ms Wong (Cheryl Lee) - a lady, unlike the wild things he has had. His charm wins him her heart, but his Casanova means refuse to take a back seat, a new lady friend threatens to change his life …

Benny starts to see hope in relationships, when Jennifer notices him and invites him over to her place. Over the visit, Jennifer’s friendly attention, takes a turn into something that Benny wish he has not been…

“Love Matters” is a humorous and entertaining look at love, happiness and issues concerning our straight laced society. It is full of trade-mark Jack Neo’s laugh-a-minute jokes and situations yet combined with a sensitive look at how we deal with issues concerning matters of the heart.

In Love Matters, besides relationships between couples, it also features the relationships between friends & family. Most of the stages in the Knapp model of Relational Development can be seen in the movie.

Although all 3 main relationships (Bo Seng & Jia Li, Jeremy & Ms Wong, Benny & Jennifer) in the movie did not reach the "Terminating" stage, along the way there were conflicts that led to the "Differentiating" stage. Especially for Bo Seng & Jia Li. An example would be when Bo Seng supposedly 'slept' with a young girl, which Jia Li later found out. She was not willing to forgive him and even wanted a divorce. But like most movies, it's usually a happy ending so obviously both of them did not end up filing for a divorce.

Unlike Bo Seng & Jia Li, Jeremy & Ms Wong as well as Benny & Jennifer, their relationships were mostly at the "Coming together" stages of the Knapp model. Although there was ONCE when Ms Wong almost broke up with Jeremy as she thought Jeremy was the one who slept with an underage girl. Since she overheard him talking about the incident to Jia Li as he was actually covering up for Bo Seng. But all was well after he made it clear to her. :)

In my opinion, I feel that the stages in the Knapp model can be seen as a cycle at times. There are couples who do reach the border of the "Coming apart" stages but would end up moving back to the "Coming together" stages (e.g. Jeremy & Ms Wong). Although it probably doesn't work out this way for most failed relationships, I would like to believe that there are exceptions out there.

What do you guys think? The Knapp model should be seen as a cycle or just a straight line model?

PS: Honestly, I don't fancy this movie at all. -.-

XOXO
atas