Sightlines · reception

How Falling in Love Like in Movies was received

2023 · Yandy Laurens · Falling in Love Like in Movies on Sightlines

The arc

A word-of-mouth darling on release in late 2023, it was fully canonized a year later when it swept the 2024 Festival Film Indonesia with seven Citra Awards — including Best Picture, Best Original Screenplay, and all four acting prizes — going from indie-flavoured rom-com to instant modern Indonesian classic.

What’s debated

The perennial fan debate is the meta framing — whether the film-about-making-this-film device is the most moving thing about it or a little too pleased with its own cleverness.

Its footprint

It became one of Indonesian cinema's biggest international crossover stories via Letterboxd, where it ranked among the highest-rated romance films in the platform's 2023 Year in Review — Letterboxd itself tracked down Yandy Laurens at a festival to ask how it felt.

Where it stands

A Letterboxd favorite and the 'you must have seen this' entry point for the new wave of Indonesian cinema, with Yandy Laurens as its rising-auteur figurehead.

Did you know? Roughly 80% of the film is in black and white — Laurens has said the monochrome was chosen to reflect the grief of Nirina Zubir's widowed character, and he had to convince producer Ernest Prakasa that a black-and-white film could work commercially.