With two main characters who are interested in cinema, this is like a Filipino answer to the Thai series, Theory of Love. Sensitive and intelligent, it nicely occupies the space between typical BLs and gay dramas, critiquing the narratives about gay people while spinning one at the same time. The result is a really moving story that is hard to flaw even if it may not be every BL fan's piece of cake--and that one of the ideas it explores.

Indeed, Like in the Movies makes the point that it isn't exactly ethical to tell stories about someone or a group of people (such as gay people) to pander to others. In one of the many witty lines in the series, Vlad tells his friend that he refuses "to be a plot device that triggers somebody else's identity crisis". Turning a character into a plot device in this manner is all too common in BL, with the multitude of apparently straight characters who inexplicably fall in love with other male characters.

Don't get me wrong though--I don't think the series is necessarily dissing all the BL stories and series out there. In fact, it could be paying tribute to the way they have help to raise the visibility of gay people. There are several allusions to the Italian movie Cinema Paradiso in which a priest makes a cinema projectionist to censor kissing scenes he finds objectionable but the latter puts the censored scenes together into a reel of film that is eventually watched by the protagonist of the film. Perhaps the allusions remind us of the power of stories and of the moving image to bring to visibility the elements that are traditionally repressed in a society, and BL stories are no different. (The way BL has become somewhat mainstream in the last few years has hopefully done something to normalize gay people in the eyes of the public.)

While it is tempting to think that Vlad ironically does end up being a plot device to trigger Karl's identity crisis, this isn't really true as we can guess that Karl is gay but closeted from the start, and the series doesn't attempt some twisted claim like he's not gay but just in love with one guy in the whole world. In the first episode, when a shirtless Vlad comes out of the bathroom and asks Karl if he has seen anything he likes, Karl (who has been ogling) retorts that Vlad shouldn't think too highly of himself. But it turns out that Vlad is only asking Karl if he has found a job posting he is interested in. Then there's the suggestive dialogue and looks when Karl tells Vlad to wear some clothes a few moments later:

Vlad: What's your problem with my body?
Karl: I'm getting wet.

If all these doesn't make it obvious enough that Karl is aware of his own homosexuality, he later also dreams of a seduction scene in bed involving Vlad and himself.

In the end, both Vlad and Karl do acknowledge their attraction to each other, but Karl remains closeted. The main source of tension isn't whether they are attracted to each other but how they can be together when one of them has had enough of hiding his sexuality and the other simply isn't ready to come out to others, particularly his parents.

The series proves to be sensitive in the way it portrays the conflict though. It doesn't preach or show Vlad's openness to be the way to go. Not many BL series give enough thought to gay people who are not ready to come out to everyone. In Dark Blue Kiss, for instance, Kao's reluctance to come out to his friends and mother is depicted to be something of a problem and the acceptance from them comes so easily that it is a tad unrealistic. (DBK isn't bad in any way, but it's always nice to have a different perspective.)

Within just 8 episodes, the series has managed to tell a good story about two guys who meet and fall in love (not strikingly original on the surface) but it manages to be so much more as it questions what it means to be an "ally" of the LGBTQ and portrays characters whose struggles are universal--the main characters are not just gay men; they are people who happen to be gay.

While many BL series from Thailand (which I'm a fan of too) seem to be adaptations of novels that are straight women's fantasies of men, Like in the Movies is refreshing in that it doesn't seem to have such a starting point. I hope there will be more BLs like that though, of course, this would also mean that the boundaries of BL will be pushed. Such a series may not please every BL fan but it deserves to have its place too.