High school sweethearts: Dilan (Iqbaal Ramadhan) and Milea (Vanesha Prescilla) go on a date. (Courtesy of Falcon Pictures)

“Milea, you’re so pretty. But I haven’t loved you yet. I don’t know whether I’ll love you in the afternoon, though. We’ll see.”

Imagine this line being fed into a machine that will then produce more that contain the same amount of vanilla. Then imagine young actors tossing out these lines. What you will get is Dilan 1990, a film directed by Fajar Bustomi and Pidi Baiq, who wrote the popular novels from which the movie is adapted.

For almost two hours, the romantic coming-of-age film is made up of predictable storylines, fair directing and a largely uninteresting screenplay.

Unfortunately, because the film is based on the first book in a series, leaving space open for sequels, Dilan 1990 is unburdened by actual stakes.

Masterfully juggling storylines is also the one thing that the film sorely lacks. Conflicts just end, with no resolution in sight or the residual effect of it for the film and the characters’ development.

Strangely enough, the film’s saving grace is its commitment to the aforementioned vanilla dialogue. Dilan 1990 has many of these lines coming out of Dilan’s (played by Iqbaal Ramadhan) mouth and ready to prickle Milea’s (played by Vanesha Prescilla) ears. Take these nuggets for instance:

“My job is to make you happy,” and, “If you’re close then I don’t have to think about you.”

These are only two examples, but almost all of the lines might as well have been delivered with the same knowing wink. The characters’ guile, however, helps the audience to understand them; it barely registers as an impossible/possible dichotomy.

Oh, Dilan hands Milea an already-finished crossword puzzle book, that’s because they’re young and in love!

This guile is also acted convincingly. You have two ways of seeing this; the actors are inexperienced or their lack of experience is necessary to letting some sort of naturalness win.

However, Pidi’s novels do have a bit of wit in them.

“The thing about a relationship is that it ends, either in marriage or in a break-up,” he wrote on the cover of the second part of the Dilan series.

The effects of these cheesy lines are also a bit jarring.

Usually, they are told in a certain way and the response to them is usually just one: laughter.

Dilan 1990 has one of these things going for them. In the movie theater, the audience more than once laughed heartily or exchanged one of those “can you believe this guy?” looks.

Save for the hurried storytelling, seeing the movie was honestly a warm experience.

There has been no word on the sequel yet, but the way the film ends, it seems very likely that there is going to be one or more.

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Dilan 1990

Production house: Falcon Pictures, Max Pictures

Running time: 110 minutes

Director: Fajar Bustomi, Pidi Baiq

Writer: Pidi Baiq, Titien Wattimena

Cast: Vanesha Prescilla, Iqbaal Ramadhan, Yuriko Angeline, Gusti Rayhan, Brandon Salim, Zulfa Maharani, Ira Wibowo

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