MILAN

How far would you go to search for lost love? In the movie Milan, Lino (Piolo Pascual) travels all the way to Milan, Italy to look for his missing wife, Mary Grace (Iza Calzado). Lost, hungry, and with no one else to go to, he is taken in by Jenny (Claudine Barretto) as one of the boarders in the apartment she rents. Lino and Jenny seeks the help of the migrant worker community in searching for Mary Grace. Eventually, Jenny meets Mary Grace, who by now is married to a local. Mary Grace has a son by an Algerian who was supposed to help her find her way into Italy's Swiss border. In between all these, Jenny helps Lino settle down into Italy. She helps him find a job, get to know other Filipinos working there. Shempre, Lino falls in love with Jenny. Trouble started when Jenny's brother comes into the picture and Lino feels left out. Frustrated, he starts throwing stuff around, thrashing everything from tables, plates, and wine bottles. Jenny then brings Lino to Mary Grace and Lino learns the truth about his wife. Eventually, this gets settled out and Lino and Jenny gets back together. Hay....

The movie has a lot of strong points. Claudine and Piolo gave really strong performances in this movie. At first, I thought this was just a cutie movie set in Milan, but yes, although there were a lot of cutsie moments, the story is focused on how OCW life is like in Italy. There's an interesting side story about how a married Pinoy and Pinay OCW falls for each other because of the loneliness there and eventually they have a "made in Italy" baby.

I think it's a pretty good feel-good movie. Not too mushy, not too serious. Okay lang pangpalipas oras. Out of five stars, I'll give it a three.