“Love Child” from an Autistic Filipino perspective
Allowing a sustained conversation for unusual topics like autism is the current trend of indie films like "Love Child". But autistic Filipino adults say: "All we want is to be here and exist."
On the 2nd of January 2025, Netflix released the Cinemalaya 2024 entry “Love Child,” directed by Jonathan Jurilla and starred real-life couple RK Bagatsing and Jane Oineza.
Jurilla wrote the story of the film, whose Carlos Palanca Award-winning screenplay was loosely based on his own story as a father of an autistic son, perhaps the most stereotypical portrayal of an autistic person outside savants like Woo Young-Woo, Sheldon Cooper, and Raymond Babbitt. Bagatsing and Oineza channeled their current relationship to play the role of the parents of an autistic child named Kali, starred by John Tyrron Ramos.
However, as someone suspecting to be autistic, I noticed that the message resonates with parents of autistic children but, just as other media ventures except for a few like “Heartbreak High,” autistic adults are, once again, being left out.
Before I begin, I would like to thank the Filipino Autistic Self-advocacy Team (FAST), an organisation of autistic Filipino adults who seek to tell our neurotypical society that “We exist!”, for providing their input and perspective in this review. I would not be able to have this content out here on the internet without their help.
Everything beyond this point is a spoiler alert, so do watch the movie on Netflix if you dare understand my perspective.
I have to admit: when I first saw the trailer for “Love Child”, I immediately cringed as I noticed the parent-of-an-autistic-child plot right off the bat. But since I have not watched it during Cinemalaya season, I held judgment of it until I watched it on Netflix. However, I still stand by what I said by the time it was released in theatres; and this is basically a deep dive of my criticism of this film which normies treat as absolute cinema of a romcom, as defined by Bagatsing’s character Paolo, and autistics like me see as a “f***ing cliche”, as said by Oineza’s Ayla.
This does not mean, though, that I already have a bad review in mind because of how it was written. The only thing holding me back is not only the fact that I am yet to watch it at that time, but also the scientific data showing that many autistic adults get formally diagnosed after their children’s autism diagnosis. However, I am getting ahead of myself, and I still see the premise as crap despite the “RKane” chemistry doing the heavy lifting.
And honestly, I would have just watched the remastered version of Marilou Diaz-Abaya’s film about Jose Rizal, which was released days ahead of the anniversary of the principal Filipino historical figure’s execution in late 2024, but I digress.
This film is also one of the last Regal movies — if not the last — executively produced by its matriarch, the late Mother Lily Monteverde.
Here’s my video about my take on “Love Child” during the Cinemalaya season:
So, the story revolves around Paolo and Ayla and their struggles of parenting their autistic child Kali as a cohabitating young, unmarried, college dropout couple in a cutthroat neurotypical world.
Right off the bat, a developmental pediatrician (“devped” for short) in Manila diagnosed Kali as an autistic, causing the couple to uproot their life in the capital and live in the Bacolod suburb of Silay in Negros Occidental. (For my non-Filipino viewers, we have an island called Negros and has two provinces in it, so please do not count this as my Pewdiepie Bridge Incident, because that is really the name of the island. Deal with it.) Jurilla’s family is based on that general area, thus the inspiration for the screenplay, as well as the creative decision to have the film shot there.
Throughout the film, Bagatsing and Oineza animated Paolo and Ayla’s parenting struggles in making Kali’s childhood a little less hard, from listening to parents and their generally unsolicited advice to doubts about how and why they became a family in the first place when their parents despised the fact that they have a child given their situation.
Are Any of the Characters Autistic?
Throughout the film, there were hints of an autistic headcanon where either Paolo or Ayla — or both! — could be autistic themselves aside from Kali.
Paolo, a frustrated filmmaker, immediately referred to Tim Burton as one example of a famous autistic person. Throughout the story, he always makes references to several key aspects of film theory (not the Theorists YouTube channel, by the way) and film production. It was also noticed that Jurilla was trying to make Paolo break the fourth wall by the mere fact of referring to his love story with Ayla as a romcom, short for “romantic comedy,” which the story seems to be hinting at in real life.
This hyperfocus on his failed dream of becoming a filmmaker, as well as his persistent attitude to do what is necessary for his partner and their son, could make him a good candidate for a highly-masking autistic.
And what about Ayla? Well, Jurilla failed to make her an autistic headcanon.
It was revealed in several plot points that Ayla’s uncle Arnold is himself autistic after it was revealed that Kali closely resembles him, prompting her to realise that she might have passed on the autism to her son. There was also some scenes where Ayla’s autistic traits could have been highlighted, such as her maternal instinct of researching about autism, her unfiltered frustration over the schoolkid who bullied Kali, and perhaps, her hypersexuality — blatantly portrayed in the scene where she attempted to have sex with Paolo and passively imagined by the fact that a child was produced outside of wedlock.
What remains to be seen is the question on whether or not Ramos is autistic in real life.
Tropes and Stereotypes
In speaking of “f***ing cliches”, autistics have been mastering the art of detecting BS when they see it, specifically if it relates to their lived experiences.
For starters, there are the generational stereotypes and issues about raising a family, especially because of a neurodivergent in the family. This could be manifested in the main characters’ next-door neighbours and fellow parents — including a lawyer and single mother who revealed she was pleasuring herself with a dildo — making unsolicited advice on how to raise a “special child” or a “child with special needs.”
There is also the trope of local issues, especially with budget cuts and slow developments in the special education sector in the Philippines. And come to think of it, this hits a jab on the public sector as a whole given the countless controversies that are being witnessed in Manila while private SPED providers have no choice but to have expensive services due to neglect in the sector.
Another common trope specifically targeted to autism and autistics is the “superhero/superpower” narrative, which a majority of autistic adults — some of them parents of autistic children themselves — either cringe or criticise as infantilising.
Autistic Filipinos should also not be surprised with the dominance of person-first language in the film given how neurotypical-centric the plot is.
There was also a fleeting mention of applied behaviour analysis (ABA) during the Christmas scene, which is the film’s climax, so that’s that.
And what’s with the colour teal dominating the infographic materials and posters of the film?
Cinema Sins and Missed Opportunities
We tackled the bad and the ugly, now we delve into the despicable nitpicks.
First of such complications is the cinema sin of English subtitles. In the scene where Ayla was doubting her capacity as a good mother and was asking if she was a bad mum, Paolo replied: “Malayo, Ayla. Malayong-malayo.” The proper English translation for that should be something like: “Far from it, Ayla. Not even close.” But the translation on Netflix was not accurate for some reason.
A missed opportunity Jurilla failed to emphasise is the fact that autistics also mask their true selves as soon as they grow. Given the fact that the plot was centred in the Bacolod metropolitan area, he did not consider incorporating the city’s annual “MassKara Festival”, which features colourful masks used by the festival’s parade participants, and relating it to the neurodivergent concept of masking.
Another missed opportunity was the lack of any perspective about Australia and how its government is struggling to cater to autistic Australians after it was found out that they die earlier than non-autistic or non-neurodivergent Australians. For that, I refer you to autistic Aussies Orion Kelly and Chloé Hayden (who became popular for her portrayal as an autistic character in another Netflix-released content, the series “Heartbreak High”).
A third missed opportunity to make it more wholesome or romcom-my is the non-verbal scene where Paolo measured Ayla’s and Kali’s foot sizes, implying that he would promise them to buy them shoes upon returning to the Philippines. Someone from FAST told me the scene could have been mistaken as a proposal plot twist, but it seems it was for the better because the film as it is shown was sappy enough.
Final Thoughts
If there is a score I could give, “Love Child” gets a 5 out of 10, or translating it to the Goldwin Reviews system, 2.5 out of 5. As someone suspecting myself to be autistic, I disagree with Goldwin’s 5/5 rating, but perhaps because the person behind those reviews may not have any concrete idea how wide and deep the Autism Spectrum is.
The film’s saving grace, as mentioned, is the Bagatsing-Oineza real-life romcom chemistry and the inclusion of a mobile cafe business (a prospect I am certainly looking forward to doing in the future), and that’s it. What seems to be the main detractor here is the fact that the local chapter of the Autism Society of the Philippines, an organisation autistic Filipino adults denounce as not helpful to autistics nationwide, is one of the supporters of the film, if not part of the technical consultancy team. Another major detractor is the fact that Jurilla did not have the autistic film director JP Laxamana even as a technical consultant for the film due his formal diagnosis. But then again, any critical take Laxamana might make would cost him his job in the Filipino film industry, all the more after he made some honestly dumb takes on meteorology last year.
There is a disconnect regarding how autism is being portrayed here in the Philippines, and “Love Child” is just strengthening the stereotypes that seem to plague our understanding of neurodiversity. But then again, there are more questions than answers after you watch it: Is the film a psy-op to not have children in the first place? Or is it telling a story about trying to slug through the struggles of life, especially with a neurodivergent child?
Perhaps, allowing a sustained conversation for unusual topics is the current trend of independent films, and indeed, “Love Child” has accomplished that. But, in conclusion, as far as autistic Filipino adults are concerned, there is only one thing they seek to get, and I quote one of the people I have conversed with while watching the film: “All we want is to be here and exist.”
Here’s the video version of this essay: