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Ada Apa Dengan Cinta?
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Rudy Soedjarwo
Produced by	Mira Lesmana Riri Riza
Written by	Jujur Prananto Prima Rusdi
Starring	Dian Sastrowardoyo Nicholas Saputra Titi Kamal
Distributed by	Miles Productions
Release date	8 February 2002
Running time	112 minutes
Country	Indonesia
Language	Indonesian
Budget	$295,000
Box office	$10 million

Ada Apa Dengan Cinta? (English: What's Up with Love?) is a 2002 Indonesian Film directed by Rudy Soedjarwo. The Indonesian title is a play on words, as Cinta (Indonesian for "love") is also the name of the main character. As such, the title can be translated as "What's Up with Love?" as well as "What's Up with Cinta?", meaning the person. The film is coloured with Indonesian mainstream as well as sidestream values, elements of classical culture and politics, and real issues encountered in teen life. The film raised censorship controversies among conservative Muslims in Indonesia, being the first Indonesian teen movie that featured a scene of a passionate kiss. The movie is known as Beautiful Days in Japan. Shortly after its success, What's Up with Love? was adapted into a sinetron (soap opera) version.^[1]

In 2014, Japanese chatting application LINE released a promotional short film featuring the cast of What's Up with Love? titled Ada Apa dengan Cinta? 2014 that portrays Rangga contacting Cinta via LINE after 12 years. The short's success led to a full-length feature film sequel, Ada Apa Dengan Cinta? 2 in 2016 that serves as an official follow up to this movie, ignoring the events from the short film. The sequel was met with much success.

Plot

Cinta (Dian Sastrowardoyo) is a popular teenage girl living a comfortable lifestyle. She is gifted and accomplished, surrounded by a group of faithful friends consisting of the wise Alya (Ladya Cheryll) the tomboyish Karmen(Adinia Wirasti), the sassy Maura (Titi Kamal), and the ditzy Milly (Sissy Priscillia). She also has caring and supportive parents. The story begins with Cinta and her four best friends crying on each other's shoulders for Alya, who was the victim of domestic abuse by her father. Cinta recites the group's pledge to the buku curhat, a diary or scrapbook shared by the girls, that a problem one of them is going through is to be shared with all of them.

Cinta is a school poet who has been honored for her work, and, in her final year of high school, she submits a beautiful poem to the yearly poetry contest. However, much to the students' surprise, Cinta didn't win. The grand prize in the contest is awarded to a boy named Rangga (Nicholas Saputra), whose name is rarely heard of in the school. However, Rangga, rather than going to the podium to receive his prize, took offence and retreated to a hiding spot. Cinta is somewhat jealous of Rangga's unexpected victory, but is careful not to show it. This leads Cinta to search for Rangga and request an interview for the school bulletin. However, Rangga immediately detects insincerity in Cinta's congratulations and walks away, leaving Cinta to be irritated by his perceived arrogance. As it turns out, Rangga never entered his poem for the contest; it was submitted on his behalf by his only best friend, the school janitor Mr. Wardiman (Mang Diman).

Cinta and Rangga starts to dislike each other ever since, and so does her friends. They briefly warm up to each other after Rangga thank Cinta for returning his book. It didn't last long since Rangga offends Cinta in a bookstore. When Rangga tries to apologize to Cinta the next day, he is beaten up by Borné (Febian Ricardo), a guy who had been trying to enter a relationship with Cinta. They starts to become friends when Cinta visits Rangga to his house, where she discovers that Rangga lives in a lower-middle-class neighbourhood with his father Yusrizal, whose outspokenness has led to bomb threats from pro-government thugs. Moreover, his parents divorced because of his father's disengagement from the government office for exposing government corruption. Alya, who regularly tells Cinta her broken home problems, is the only one Cinta told that she's having a budding closeness with Rangga.

The secret friendship causes changes in Cinta's behaviour, resulting in problems with Cinta's group of girl friends. She starts to regularly lie to her friends in order to spend more time with Rangga. The problem reach its climax when Cinta ignores Alya's desperate request to talk with her because she is going on a date with Rangga. When she come home, she is told that Alya is in the hospital because she attempted suicide. At the hospital, the friends realize that she has been lying all along, straining their friendship. Thinking it was all her fault, Cinta then shut Rangga out, hurting him. When Alya recover, she discuss Rangga with Cinta, in which Karmen, Maura, and Milly overhears and finally discover the formerly budding relationship between Cinta and Rangga. Cinta apologizes to them and Maura advises her to forget Rangga.

Cinta did so, and she goes on with her life. Meanwhile, Karmen sees Rangga gives Mr. Wardiman a goodbye hug. Noticing that Cinta turns quiet and uncommunicative, her friends realize the error in their ways and Cinta confess that she is in love with Rangga, but not ready to admit it. Karmen tell her she didn't have much time since she saw Rangga left. Mr. Wardiman tell the girls that Rangga is heading to the airport. In rush, they forces their nerdy schoolmate Mamet (Dennis Adhiswara), whom they ridicule throughout the film, to lend his car to the airport. Cinta manages to catch Rangga, as he and his father are moving to New York City. They profess their love for each other and share a kiss, but Rangga has to go, leaving Cinta heartbroken. Before departing, Rangga gives Cinta a book and tell her to read the last page. They bid each other one last farewell, and he boards the plane.

On the car, Cinta reads the last page, which contains a poem Rangga wrote about her. The last line says that he will return before the full moon. Suddenly, the girls freak out when they realize they have left Mamet in the airport.

Cast

• 
  Dian Sastrowardoyo as Cinta


• 
  Nicholas Saputra as Rangga


• 
  Ladya Cheryl as Alya


• 
  Titi Kamal as Maura


• 
  Sissy Priscillia as Milly


• 
  Adinia Wirasti as Karmen


• 
  Dennis Adhiswara as Mamet


• 
  Febian Ricardo as Borné


• 
  Mang Diman as Mr. Wardiman


• 
  Gito Rollies as Limbong

Achievement

• 
  Indonesian Film Festival 2004
  
  
  
  • Best Actress in a Leading Role (Dian Sastrowardoyo)
  
  
  • 
    Best Director (Rudi Soedjarwo)
  
  
  • Best Original Score(Melly Goeslaw & Anto Hoed)
  
  
  • Best Screenplay (Jujur Prananto, Rako Prijanto, Riri Riza)
  
  
  
  

Popular culture

A parody of a could-be scene in the movie, personally played by Saputra and Sastrowardoyo, was made into a commercial for a popular mall in Jakarta called Plaza Senayan.

References

External links

• 
  What's Up with Love? on IMDb