While marketed as a family drama, Long Live Love! plays out more like a romance film between parents Sati and Meta. Where Meta has dived in, and accepted her role as a wife and mother, former model Sati still clings to the immature lifestyle he’s used to, to the glimmers of fame that he used to have. The premise is genius– there’s something poetic in the way someone who’s constantly obsessed with the look of a photo now has to go on the quest for its behind-the-scenes. There’s something here that questions previous portrayals of toxic masculinity and of marriage primarily because of how they’ll be perceived. However, there seems to be some missing sequences that could have made the ending more devastating.
Synopsis
A story about a party-animal Sati, a man whose attitude has left a broken family at home. Meta, his wife, is preparing to leave him. At age 15, his daughter, Namo is already jaded from a lifetime of broken promises.
Storyline
After years of putting up with his antics, Meta is prepared to leave her husband Sati and move to Bali with their daughter Namo for a new life. Before she does so, however, Sati gets amnesia, and a mysterious ability to rewatch a memory each time he recreates a photo.
TLDR
Mild spoilers: The ending makes sense, but it could have been more heart-wrenching, mind-bending, soul-crushingly devastating…
What stands out
Amnesia plots are common, even for arrogant jerks like Sati (a good Western example would be Peter Callaghan in Sandra Bullock’s While You Were Sleeping). However, Long Live Love uses the trope in such a unique way. It’s rare to see it be used as a chance for the protagonist to be confronted with their own actions, to acknowledge his arrogant behavior in an objective view. That being said, the potential for this hasn’t been maximized, because it’s hard to pinpoint why exactly they decided to get together in the first place, and Sati without his memories isn’t really enamored enough with Meta. The clever structure and order of reveals still is enough to pull some tears by the end, but there still could have been something done to make the ending absolutely devastating.
