Choose (2017)

The story begins with Ton breaking up with someone over the phone, and we are likely to assume that it's the other main character, Tawan, but this will turn out to be a wrong assumption.

Perhaps the story would merely be an unimpressive tearjerker if it had involved a straight couple, but where gay love stories are concerned, it is still fairly refreshing to have a show that doesn't focus on sex-crazed gay culture, innocent schoolboy love or struggles with homophobia in society. It is a simple love story about two men who love each other, with Tawan being the older man who has given a lot to his younger lover.

It turns out that Tawan is dying of late stage cancer and has decided to break up with Ton who is oblivious to Tawan's condition. As Ton's superior or boss at work, Tawan has even planted a female secretary, whom he knows will get along very well with Ton, to work with Ton.

Even though Ton ends up sleeping with the secretary who seems unaware of Tawan's plan, the ethics of employing the woman for this purpose is questionable and not addressed. And why Tawan chooses a female rather than a male person is also, unfortunately, not explained.

We also do not know the reasons behind Tawan's coldness towards Ton from the start. The decision to reveal Tawan's motivations later rather than earlier in the story has its pros and cons. The good thing is that there is a bit of a twist though one may be half-expecting it. The bad thing is that we may not feel so much for the characters until quite late in the story.

In any case, things do not go as Tawan has planned. After Tawan breaks up with him, an upset Ton gets into an accident and loses his sight and needs cornea donation to see again. So, expectedly, it's going to be Tawan who sacrifices by donating his cornea. What I don't get is how Tawan manages to do so before his death. (Is it even allowed?) The logic of the story aside, Ton regains his sight and looks for Tawan, who doesn't seem to have expected Ton to look for him, and the documents that will reveal the truth about Tawan's health, the secretary's employment and Tawan's cornea donation are lying in plain sight for Ton to see. Don't try to be too rational with the story here or it will spoil things for you.

The ending is bittersweet. Almost callously, Ton breaks up with the secretary (not that he is even a couple with her to begin with) and is by Tawan's side for what remains of his life. Despite the cliches in the story, Choose does come across as a sincere effort to tell a story about two men who truly love each other even when they are met with the worst challenges that life throws at them. It's nice to see a Thai production venture into new terrain with a story involving gay men--the typical BL is fairly lucrative, so we can see why companies would create them, but stories that aren't going to be commercially very successful deserve a chance.

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