A Pregnant Girl Changes The Lives Of A Gay Couple In ‘5 Lessons in Happiness: Baby Maybe’

BL Recaps Taiwan

2023-09-06
11:12

‘5 Lessons in Happiness: Baby Maybe’ follows the story of the long-time gay couple, Feng (played by Sean Zhao) and Fang (played by Kuang Tian), and the student Lily (played by Peggy Wu).

Wait, how exactly does a girl fit into this gay couple story? Curious? Keep on reading. Fair warning though, spoilers are ahead.

The story starts with the high school biology teacher Liu Cheng Feng who’s looking at the nursery of a hospital. Feng believes that the meaning of life is to put yourself out there and truly love someone. While ruminating, Feng gets joined by Lily and together they go to the parking lot with Feng thinking that in order to build a family with the one he loves, he has to cheat. A man observes them from a distance as they leave the hospital.

A month earlier.

Lily is in a bio lab where she’s supposed to put away an embryo specimen when she suddenly feels nauseous. She spots an octopus on the floor and then falls unconscious. Her classmates say that they heard Lily has psychic abilities and the specimen lab is too grim and ominous for her.

However, the nurse at the clinic disagrees and tells Feng that Lily just doesn’t know she’s pregnant. The school nurse complains that ever since winter break, minor students have been asking her about abortion. Lily, who’s on the bed, sneakily listening, suddenly stands up and asks the nurse for a pad, implying she has her period.

Inside Feng’s car, Lily asks about ghosts. Lily says that she felt something while holding the baby. Feng rebukes her for calling an embryo a baby. Embryos are just fertilized eggs under transformation, he says. Lily asks if an embryo is not a baby. Feng hands her some hand-outs and says no, an embryo is a cell tissue undergoing cell division thus, you can’t call an embryo, cycas, or a capsule a pine tree.

They arrive at Feng’s house, having completely forgotten that he’s supposed to drop off Lily first. Lily tells him it’s okay and she can walk to her house. Unbeknownst to them, they are being watched from inside Feng’s house through a camera. The watcher is Fang, who’s currently sharpening a wooden knife as he furiously watches Feng and Lily talk.

Lily alights Feng’s car and part ways with Feng who moves to go inside his house. As soon as he steps inside though, Fang puts the knife against his neck and interrogates him about Lily. Fang asks if Feng is cheating on him with his student. Fang corners him but Feng sensuously asks him if that turns him on, while groping Fang. The two start making out (in front of a window!) without knowing that Lily’s about to come to bring back Feng’s handouts. Lily knocks on the door and then spots the two men passionately making out.

After the ruckus and when the two men are, ahem, much more presentable, Lily gets invited inside the house. She’s treated with some fruits and tea. The two are on their knees, telling Lily that she can’t go off and tell everybody about their secret especially since Feng teaches in a Christian school and Fang supplements that Feng is an only son. Feng says his grandmother’s dream is to have grandkids which is why they’ve been together in secret all these years despite same-sex marriage being legal in Taiwan.

Lily promises not to tell in exchange for a favor: for them to lend her some money for an abortion. Feng is shocked seeing that Lily told the nurse earlier that she had just gotten her period. Lily confessed that she lied. Feng raises a concern though— Lily can’t get an abortion without a family or spouse signing the consent form. To resolve that, Lily asks him or Fang to pretend as her father to help sign the form. The two are apprehensive, saying that they’re too young to look like dads. Feng remarks that they look more like a husband.

That gets Lily thinking and arrives at a conclusion: maybe they can get married. The couple are discombobulated but Lily insists that they can get a divorce after. Feng is astounded and rendered speechless that Fang had to slap him in the thighs to get him to respond.

Later, at dinner, Fang scolds Feng for thinking about saying yes to Lily’s proposal even if it’s a sham marriage. Fang voices his concern about losing Feng for good but Feng assures him that it won’t happen because they’ll get a divorce once the baby is born. Feng is too happy but Fang is still apprehensive, given that Feng is already treating Lily better than him, even planning to cook her an herbal fish soup when all he got for dinner were dumplings. Fang complains about it but Fang jokes that he’ll give him soup when he can give birth. Now, this writer knows that’s a joke but maybe don’t say that to a jealous husband.

In the clinic, Lily and Feng get asked if they will keep the baby and both of them say yes and no. Lily whines and calls him “Teacher,” which makes Feng nervous so he just asks for an examination first before they can decide. Feng has to leave the room while Lily gets her check-up and he goes to the nursery to coo on babies.

Fang appears to have been following the two and Lily, with her psychic abilities, feels the cold following them, specifically her. What ensues next is a raucous (and quite scary) stalking antic from Fang as he hovers around Lily (and Feng) to make sure his husband stays his. Feng finds out that Fang has been following Lily who has been scared to death thinking that the soul of unborn fetuses has been haunting her. Feng motions for Fang to leave them alone.

Back at home, Feng confronts Fang for stalking them. Fang reasons that he has been taking care of Lily too well while Feng counters that it’s for the baby. Fang says Lily is too scared about her pregnancy getting exposed to want to help Feng with his goal. Feng is speechless for a while until he gets an idea. Aside from her pregnancy being revealed, Lily is also scared of paranormal stuff specifically the spirits of unborn babies. Feng theorizes that the more scared Lily is, the more likely she’ll keep the baby. Fang asks what Feng intends to do.

“What ending would you choose for Baby Maybe?”

Lily and Feng get married but she chooses not to have the baby.
They get married and keep the baby.
Lily insists on not keeping the baby, and the couple comes out of the closet, gets married, and fights for surrogacy rights.

Writer’s thoughts:

Now, this writer knows that the majority of the antics in this film are meant to be funny but unfortunately, stalking an underage girl and conniving to manipulate her into keeping a baby she doesn’t want leaves a bad taste in my mouth. But looking past that briefly, this writer appreciates the third option in this choose-your-ending scenario where everybody gets to have what they want, ideally without any repercussions especially with Lily being underage and with Feng’s grandmother.

All in all, ‘5 Lessons in Happiness: Baby Maybe’ is a pretty fun short film to watch at only 10 minutes and this writer recommends this to everyone.

Watch ‘5 Lessons in Happiness: Baby Maybe’ on GagaOOLala. Enjoy watching either version on a bigger screen because GagaOOLala is now available to watch on your smart TVs by downloading the app on Google Play, Amazon Appstore, and Roku.