Film: Shift

It was not a love story. That’s one sure thing that I can say to the film, Shift. I wasn’t. The film was about gender, love, culture and work. Though, the concept of love was present in the film, it was not the center of it. That’s in my opinion, at least.

The film revolved around the life of Estela (Yeng Constantino), who is an unconventional call center agent. Estela struggles for direction in her life with numerous talents, interests and ambitions. I think that’s the main dilemma of Estela in the film. The fact that she has all those talents and ambitions, but never having the guts to try them out. Throughout the film, Estela is portrayed as a free-spirited girl with a lot of potentials. But there was never an execution of any of it. She knew photography, she writes songs, she sings and many others but never focused on one skill that she has.

Then Estela meet Trevor. Their unusual friendship became something more personal than Estela could ever imagine. It was a mixture of being real and true to them.
Their odd friendship was conflict to the main message of the film. I guess their close friendship was misinterpreted by viewers, which made them think that the film was a love story. There was just too much chemistry between the two characters. And as we all know, typical Filipino viewers look for romance in every film they watch. But I know that the love formed between the two characters was not the message of the film. And I think that, that was one of the things that I noticed. The film gave so much emphasis on the ‘friendship’, that it was misinterpreted. There were too many scenes and sequences that showed their closeness to each other. And that’s why people who have watched the film would say that it was ‘bad’ love story, as what a typical Filipino viewers. Because we all know Filipinos want the “and they lived happily ever after” ending in every film.

“Shift” was about change and transformation. At first look, many would probably say that the film was about ‘shift’, like the term usually used by call center agents. The long hours of staying in one cubicle, talking to random callers for a conversation with answers prepared beforehand. But instead of change and transformation, instead of portraying what the word really mean, Estela finds herself in the same situation where she was before. No change and no transformation. The same as she was from the beginning of the film.