‘Before, Now & Then’, tellingly, depicts a story with times played. Nana (Happy Salma), an Indonesian film actress plays the role of the main character in the movie convinces many a woman by telling them a woman in fact can tolerate her husband’s constant and blatant infidelity and even accept and befriend his woman in a true and sincere manner. Nana has opened up many a woman’s eyes and widened many a woman’s chests to a rather liberal way. Of course, it has to rely on relationships and Nana has done a great job in it. Yeah, many a truth tell us women are peaceful creatures a bit different from men, and Nana has proved this paradox well-founded.

Nana not only tells us time flies but also love is precious. After fleeing for her life with her sister Ninsingh (Rieke Diah Pitaloka) deep in a forest with a rejection to marry an insurgent leader as the prologue in the film, Nana starts her new life with a wealthy Sundanese man (Arswendy Bening Swara) and has borne four children. Apparently, she is content with the marriage and the loving family she has now; however, deep down she longs for her ex-husband whom she thinks has died. In the movie, there are several scenes of her dreaming of him tragically dead jolting her out of bed sweating in the middle of the night.

Not until one day Nana meets her ex-husband by accident does she stop dreaming of him dead. Nevertheless, the story doesn’t end here, Nana has her decide what to do with the reunion of her ex-husband. After mulling and mulling, she has decided to be with her ex-husband, clearly, she knows she has to make some sacrifices. She will lose custody of some of her children at the price of divorce. At the outset, we cannot know how Nana would face such a grim challenge, for she always maintains appearances in the movie, however; when at last she knows she can only have her baby boy with her and lose the other three children’s custody, she collapses in front of us telling us that she finds such a parting with her children is painful, cruel, and is hard to bear. For all that, she chooses to be with her ex-husband thinking of rolling out a new chapter with him in her life that she finds sacrifices, for now, are a must.

From the movie, what I have seen is we must admit what we want and be brave to do so; however, we have to let go of something to gain what we want. You can’t have your cake and eat it, yeah, we cannot at the same time do two good things. Nana has proved this idiom more than wise. Compared with the people who have married and have extramarital affairs unwilling to let go of something but own all by cheating on their significant half, Nana is a role model for us to follow when she has evinced traditionality and decency in morals; liberalism, and bravery in dealing with her wishes even in the era of 1960s.