Thai films are finally getting a platform to showcase the talent of their artists. There are countless films being made by filmmakers from Thailand, and all of them come from different genres. Some are about zombie apocalypses, and some about horror fantasy fiction. There are some romantic dramas as well that put across some realistic stories. Manaman is the story of a young athletic man who is trying hard to find a job to sustain himself and his family.
Spoilers Ahead
Why was Mana in need of a job?
Mana was a young man with minimal qualifications and very little work experience who was looking for any job that would give him the opportunity to learn on the field and earn a monthly salary. His interview with a proper nine-to-five company went badly as the interviewees insulted him for not having basic computer skills. Mana was also working as a daily wage worker with a small-scale snack-producing company, but that was not enough to sustain his family. He had a sister whose college fees needed to be paid, and his mother’s food stall also closed down because of bad reviews; these were becoming a burden, and hence he needed a steady job.
What kind of job did Joy offer?
Joy was the daughter of a restaurant owner, Nong. Nong was a yesteryear faded action star who started his own restaurant, but somehow he would never stop talking about his glory days. His daughter was a costume assistant who offered Mana to play a body double in a movie from which he was removed for bad acting. She then offered him a commercial that was sabotaged by Mana’s school friend Puek.
Why was Puek hell-bent on taking his revenge?
Puek was Mana’s childhood friend who had pent up all the anger he had toward his classmate for many years. Puek stated that when they were kids, Mana played a prank that scarred him for a long time. Many friends began to make fun of him after that point, and he never forgave Mana for putting him through such humiliation. Mana could not understand how a man could hold such resentment for this long, and decided to not take Puek seriously. Puek, however, revealed he had been keeping track of what Mana had been doing all these years, and he had sabotaged his life just to get back at him.
Was Mana in dire need of money?
Mana’s need for money was quadrupled when he learned that his mother had taken out another loan to repay an old loan. Thanks to Joy, he got another gig as a stunt double, for which he was promised good money. Even though he was putting his life at risk, he wanted this money to run his household. To Mana’s shock, the new stunt double that joined the film was Puek, who was going out of his way to sabotage a lot of shots in the hope Mana was fired from the film and was replaced.
During one of the crucial scenes in the film involving the body double, Puek’s mischief led to Mana falling down, and a large steel rod fell on his leg. This incident rendered him injured for a while, which meant he would not be able to work on the film thanks to Puek. Mana’s mother began to work with Nong in the hotel as a way to help him. They had moved into Nong’s home above the restaurant as they lost the possession of their home due to non-repayment of the debt. Around the same time, Joy fell sick out of nowhere. Detailed tests on Joy revealed that she had a heart condition that needed urgent surgery, which would cost Nong a lot of money.
Did Mana survive the fall?
Mana learned of Joy’s condition and decided to do his part by trying to make enough money for the treatment. This was Mana’s way of reciprocating for all the help Joy had offered to him so that he could earn some decent money. In the beginning of the film, it was indicated that Joy liked Mana a lot, which was also the reason why she was willing to offer him jobs in the film industry since she knew he was a decent man who would not take things for granted.
Mana was a good person, and he wouldn’t take unnecessary risks unless he knew it was for a good cause. He decided to work on the film despite his injury so that he got the money he was promised on the completion of the project. Mana had no money on him, and the only way to earn some was to work hard and make himself seem like an important part of the project. He was aware Puek would again try to sabotage him, but all Mana could do was ignore his ex-schoolmate’s antics and concentrate on retaining his job and working as per the director’s instructions. The money was of utmost importance. On the set, Puek was hell-bent on ruining Mana’s chances to be in the film. Mana apologized to him for what happened when they were children and pacified him, stating that they were at an age where none of them knew what was right or wrong.
Puek was also immature to have retained such anger for all these years instead of moving on. This indicates that he was probably not a good man, since he was wishing bad luck to someone who pranked him when they were children. Mana had grown up to be a good person, but Puek was still not ready to move on from the incident from childhood and believe that his nemesis was in dire need of money. Mana’s friends overheard Puek’s friends discussing that they pulled a mischief again. They loosened the noose of the rope Mana would hang on to and it was done to injure him. His friends tried to stop the shooting. Puek did not budge, even though Mana offered a heartfelt apology, and went ahead with the shot knowing Mana could hurt himself if the rope on which he was dangling snapped. As the struggle between Puek and Mana began during the shot, the former saved himself. Mana eventually fell and did not regain consciousness for a small while. Puek began to panic as he never wanted Mana to die. His only goal was to make sure Mana stayed out of work for as long as possible. Puek went into a panic, and so did Mana’s friends, including Nong. Nong and two other friends of Mana had stayed with him from the start, and they were aware he was a good man. None of them would be able to move past his untimely death if that happened. To everyone’s relief, Mana regained consciousness within a short while.
Did Puek and Mana become friends?
Mana and Puek had a long conversation after the former regained consciousness after the fall. Both had to continue the conversation about moving on and hopefully become friends. Puek claimed that he did not hate Mana, it was only anger which drove him out of his mind. Mana’s near-death incident shook him out of that feeling and urged him to mend the misunderstandings.
Manaman ended with Mana receiving his money on the completion of the film and using that for Joy’s surgery. A short while later, Joy and Mana had a conversation about him going out of his way to help her. He also paid his sister’s college fees, and she deemed him as a hero for taking care of these tasks. It was a little bizarre to portray him as a hero since Nong was the father and he should have been providing for his daughter. The makers had to make Mana look like the hero since he performed his duty as a man, which was to provide for his family. It did not make sense as to why his mother and sister did not contribute financially to make their life bearable. Mana using all of the money for Joy’s treatment may come across as his way to give back what she did for him, yet portraying him as a hero was a bit much. Joy confessed her love for Mana, but she quickly understood he just wanted to be friends and apologized for coming on too strong. To her surprise, he reciprocated her feelings for him. This meant that Mana may have liked her all this while. Since he was out of work for the most part, he did not have the courage to express it. Since both were in a good place financially, Joy and Mana did not mind being together romantically. However, he had to reconcile with Puek since that was the essence of the film. Puek started off as a person who had abhorred Mana. By now, their relationship has changed for good as Puek decided to be friends with Mana.
Mana and Puek met at the park where the latter had his first and only feud many years ago; they placed their name on the park hoarding, cementing their friendship. They appeared as two superheroes to commemorate their childhood friendship many years later. Puek forgave Mana, and this was just the start of their friendship/brotherhood.
