Dear Galileo (2009)

Far from good movie, yet still better than any lakorn of Toey Jarinporn's

This 'roadmovie' doesn't have much of a story to speak of, yet it's not lacking anything the super-long and super-complicated plot bearing lakorns can emotionally give you. It's mainly just two girls and it's enough (when you add the guy on the poster, it's actually a bit surplus), one is the known cutie Toey Jarinporn, the other one is also pretty and distinct personality. Their friendship is true. This film reminds you how traveling though often 'advertised' as desirable and enjoyable activity is actually pretty unconfortable, hazardous, how it brings the uneasy feeling out of one's roots (although it brings the unique meeting of new friends). So it's the oposite of what we see in lakorns where everything just looks pretty, I can appreciate the look of the interiors the girls sleep in (as they are not exactly traveling by hotels) and the harsh reality they meet aside the pirotesque sceneries for the tourists. In compare to most lakorns, the 'drama' here is much smaller and therefore actually more powerful and touching. The 'Big Three' are not big here, actually: London is glum, everything goes wrong in Paris and Rome is coming too little too late to save it all. I appreciate more the feeling this movie's drama gives than what is actually happening, as that is mostly nonsense. I am european and I understand that people from hot climate will come down with cold quite strongly, but I know it's perfectly legal to buy paracetamol without prescription, riding public transport without a ticket won't bring a policemen dramatically chase you and when we arrive to Italy, where on of the girls has very interesting work opportunity, I was hoping the mood of the movie shall be lifted and changed, but almost all the screentime is spent in yet another small workplace where girls have another 'drama' cheating in selling icecream. While all those small episodes are expanded in detail, the fact how one of the girls starts a professional career and learns a foreing language with ease is swiftly skipped. So it's far from perfect, but it leaves you with emotions that are believable, even in situations such as those where one of the girls starts following a completely strange guy around, just because she hears him speaking thai. Because you understand that perfectly. The main theme is if one of the friends won't leave the other, banal thing but important enough to touch a viewer.

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