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“12” is a movie about letting go.

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I used to say letting go sounds like latigo. Latigo 50?

Latigo 50 is a veterinary medicine, an anthelmintic to let go of parasitic worms in pigs and fighting cocks.

No, not that fighting cock—that’s the human kind.

The keyword there is veterinary.

“12,” though, is about a human couple who have been together for 12 years—five years as best friends, then seven years of living together but not married. They have that number tattooed on their wrists I guess to make sure they remember. They’re not wearing “12” as two digits but as solo figures, he has the “1” and she has the “2,” which should warn you that’s how detached they are from each other. But if they join their wrists together, you see the “12.”

Like those tattoos on other couples—the half of a heart on the girl’s back, the other half on the guy’s back, they stand right beside each other and you see the whole heart on their naked backs. It’s corny and at the same time alarming—what if they separate, should they look for other people with half hearts? The half heart can also be a warning—they went into this relationship half-hearted, waiting for the other to complete them.

A Valentine’s Day game also has this—red hearts cut a certain way into two are distributed to boys and girls, and once the clock starts, they now have to find the half-heart’s perfect match. The couple who can match their half-hearts first win the prize. This must be the inspiration behind the heart tattoos on the back?

It is said that you can give only what you have, and “12” kind of teaches us this lesson.

“You complete me” is supposed to be a romantic line. But it’s not. If anyone proposes to you that way, even if it’s Tom Cruise, or especially if it’s Tom Cruise, flee to Siberia and let the cold drown your happily-ever-after illusions. You should be complete before going into a relationship otherwise you’ll keep looking for what’s not there.

“You complete me” is not in “12.” But it’s in another movie, Cruise’s “Jerry Maguire,” which also has, “You had me at hello.”

Thanks to scriptwriters for writing lines that are not possible in real life.

“You had me at hello,” though, can be possible. Men tend to impress women with power and money when the truth is, once the woman is convinced, she won’t need any more convincing. She’s already convinced, she already believes you, you had her at hello. There are times when the woman may feel she has to tell her man, You are enough. You are enough as you are.

But if she’s not convinced, no amount of convincing can convince her.

Sexual harassment and sexual assault are now the trending topics hurled against men with power and money, mostly in Hollywood. The more prominent, the deeper the fall. Kevin Spacey’s role as billionaire John Paul Getty in the movie, “All the Money in the World,” will be erased, to be replaced by Christopher Plummer. Imagine a studio and the film’s other stars willing to do reshoots to delete Spacey outta there. That’s how deep the fall is.

Spacey’s case is not with women but with once young men. Young helpless men who needed his support in their Hollywood dreams.

Spacey is one of the best actors in the world. When he starred in the 1995 movie, “The Usual Suspects,” most probably he didn’t imagine of becoming one in the future. He already had money and power then, who would even dare accuse him of anything.

But he and other sexual harassers and assaulters are now the usual suspects, and the revelations have encouraged other victims to reveal their own stories.

That’s the result of forcing themselves on unconvinced people. It’s not a two-way street—it’s one way, and only they are willing to travel on it.

The actress and former beauty queen Maria Isabel Lopez has also learned a thing or two about traveling on streets—more particularly on Edsa’s Asean lane. With her Facebook post and her own videos as evidence, she might lose her driver’s license over what Emmanuel Miro, chair of the Asean Technical Working Group on Traffic Management, calls as Lopez’s “misbehavior.”

Sense of entitlement is the root of the sexual harassment and assault cases, and also of driving on the Asean lane. In other words, feelingera. They feel they deserve more.

And for a couple to feel they deserve more from each other is what “12” is. It’s a movie that you seek reviews for, waiting for someone to convince you it’s worth it because watching a movie costs a lot nowadays—a meal before, popcorn during, coffee after. Add to that the ticket price.

“12” has Alessandra de Rossi all over it—she’s the lead actress, wrote the screenplay and story, wrote the lyrics and sang its theme song. Guess what the song’s title is? “12,” of course.

“‘Cause it’s over now/Can’t you see where I am?/I danced in your lonely eyes/You cried, you cried/I was chasing you/I was chasing you/While your colors ran into the sun/I was your ocean/Sweet undertow/And you never drowned/I was chasing you/Was I breaking you.”

If de Rossi’s “12” and her role in “Kita Kita” are not enough to convince you, then nothing will.

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