LYSB’s Underlying Metaphor

(Official poster of Love You to the Stars and Back)

A story of adventure and romance, “Love You to the Stars and Back” gives its audience a deeper meaning behind the characters’ journey toward finding extraterrestrial beings on the peaks of Milagros Mountain.

Mika, portrayed by Julia Barretto, is a teenage girl in the search for “aliens” in order to escape the problems with her family. It is like fate is working between them because coincidently, she comes across Caloy, played by Joshua Garcia, in a very peculiar way. Caloy is a family boy suffering from the torment caused by cancer and is on his way to his father.

With both having a goal of reaching their destination, they continue their quest together--getting to know each other along the way and later on developing feelings for each other.

After being disappointed with unforeseen events, Caloy acquiesced to join Mika in her quest to meet the aliens in Mt. Milagros, which she hopes will "abduct" her from the Earth.

Their goal of being abducted by the aliens can be considered a metaphor for suicide because leaving the planet means escaping all their problems--choosing death. This argument can be further supported by the emotional phone call they made before proceeding with their plan.

Being the primary reasons why they’re on the road, it can be seen that their families served as catalysts for their intentions. The movie serves as an avenue for its audience to be informed that now and then, the problem can start within the home.

The movie, which started showing on August 30, came in the right time for the commemoration of World Suicide Prevention Day on the 10th of September and the celebration of National Suicide Prevention Week.

After arriving at realizations along their journey, Caloy and Mika now considers Mt. Milagros a symbol of hope in continuing the life their families have always supported.