Drama movie Merry Riana depicts an individual'€™s tenacity and refusal to never bow to any hardship in life.

Based on a true story that is the focus of the novel Merry Riana: Mimpi Sejuta Dolar (Merry Riana: One Million Dollar Dream), the movie revolves around how Merry Riana (Chelsea Islan) deals with her hardest times.

Merry, who recently graduated from high school, is forced to flee to Singapore alone due to the 1998 riots. Her father (Ferry Salim) tells her to go to her uncle'€™s place for a while until the whole family has enough money to join her.

But Merry finds her uncle'€™s place empty. Roaming aimlessly around the city, she meets her high school friend Irene (Kimberly Ryder), who is studying at Nanyang Technological University.

Irene gives Merry a place to stay by sneaking her in to a dorm, but when a security guard finds out about it, he reports them to the university'€™s administration officer. The only solution is to enroll at the university.

Merry applies for a university student loan to pay her tuition worth S$40,000 for her four-year degree. However, she first needs to find a guarantor to be granted the loan.

Irene introduces her to Alva Tjenderasa (Dion Wiyoko) to act as guarantor.

Merry struggles to find work with only a student pass, facing many rejections before finally finding employment as a pamphlet distributor in a non-profit organization.

But just when she thinks everything has worked out, she is forced to leave the job.

From here, the plot starts to build. Desperate, Merry sells her laptop and invests the proceeds in a fake marketing company, but oblivious to the possibility of fraud, she loses her money.

Alva then accompanies her to find a new job, but to no avail. He resigns from his job so she can fill the vacancy.

Merry starts to have a crush on Alva, although she knows it is wrong as Irene is in love with Alva. When Irene sees that they are close, she kicks Merry out of the dorm.

Merry stops talking to Alva, but after a while, Merry and Alva start seeing each other again and get even closer, as Alva introduces her to investing in the stock market.

She gets so carried away with how profitable the stock market can be that all she can think about every day is making more investments.

Alva decides to propose to her, but Merry ruins his chance as she cannot stop talking about investment and money.

When Merry makes a big investment in a company, she faces more trouble as the company she invests in goes bankrupt and she loses all her money again.

Directed by Hestu Saputra, who co-directed the controversial Cinta Tapi Beda (Love but Different) with Hanung Bramantyo, the film, which hit theaters on Dec. 24, was mostly shot in Singapore.

However, the details stray too far from the setting of 1998 tragedy, featuring things that did not even exist in that time, such as iPhones, tablet computers and the Marina Bay Sands resort, which opened in 2010.

Overall, the film is not just about love that does spice up the storyline but the story is also inspiring as it tries to tell the audience to never give up when going through bad times.

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Merry Riana
(MD Pictures, 105 minutes)
Producers: Dhamoo Punjabi and Manoj Punjabi
Director: Hestu Saputra
Casts: Chelsea Islan, Dion Wiyoko, Kimberly Ryder, Ferry Salim, Cynthia Lamusu, Niniek L. Karim
Scriptwriters: Titien Watimena and Rahabi Mandra

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