Are you the Lover or the Loved One?
Girly liked the movie so much, she just had to blog about it!
I watched The Loved One last weekend, and gandang-ganda ako. I purposefully avoided spoilers since it premiered (Feb 11) because I wanted my reflection to be raw, untouched, and purely based on what I’d see on the screen.
It’s nice, it feels so good, and it makes you feel alive. But at the same time, deep down, that fear about love will always linger. The Loved One showed us that grieving doesn’t require a timeline. Walang nagsabi na kapag mas maiksi ang timeline ng relationship, mas magiging madali ang pag-let go kaysa sa mga nagsama nang matagal.
As long as you feel it, it’s real. It’s valid. But in the movie, that 10-year timeline is no joke. Imagine being with someone for a decade, only to realize that you’ve both become too much for each other.
2. Love Should Not Be a Question
Sabi ni Eric, saying I love you had become a question—and he was always scared of the answer. Dito pa lang, alam nating mali na.
The moment I love you starts feeling like a question rather than a statement, you know the foundation is failing. Love should be a safe space, not a source of anxiety. If you’re constantly checking if the love is still there, you’re no longer living in the relationship; you’re just surviving it.
There was a scene where they were fighting about marriage. Eric was ready, but Ellie was not. He wanted to know what Ellie saw in their future, pero sabi ni Ellie, ayaw niya pa. She didn’t want to be trapped.
Dito natin makikita ang difference nila, maybe dahil sa kinalakihan nila. Eric came from a place of scarcity. He needed the security of marriage, the papers, and the house to feel safe. If I recall it right, he did not grow up with a father figure; he became the one for his family. Pero Ellie came from privilege. She grew up with everything handed to her, so she values freedom more than security.
For Eric, marriage is a goal; for Ellie, it feels like a cage. It was unfair for Eric kasi parang for convenience lang ang relationship for her, but at the same time, Eric failed to see that you cannot cage a bird that was born to fly. You can't enter a relationship expecting to change an aspect of the person you fell in love with just because their upbringing doesn't match yours.
4. Love is about "The Becoming"
Long-term relationships mean meeting different versions of your partner. The challenge is to embrace those versions. Growth is inevitable, but it only becomes a good thing if you value communication and compromise.
Communication is the bridge, but Compromise is the toll you pay to cross it. Kung puro kayo salita pero walang gustong magbigay, para lang kayong sumisigaw sa pader.
I think love and disrespect will meet at one point, but they should not be friends. There will be situations where you will go overboard and disrespect each other—maybe at the height of emotions, maling timing, or the weight of the fight. But love should be forgiving.
Eric cheated. It was during the time when Ellie wanted space because she felt unseen and unsupported. But Ellie forgave him.
I think ang dahilan kung bakit sila umabot ng 10 years na parang hindi nila kilala ang isa’t isa is because they loved each other so much that they did not speak up, thinking it would only cause pain.
They reached a point where they weren't afraid to hurt each other anymore. They let problems pile up until they were comfortably hurting each other. Once disrespect moves into the house of love, the home slowly crumbles into a ruin—a place where you stay out of habit, even as the ceiling falls down on both of you
“Love turns ordinary people into poets, philosophers, and monsters.”
Ganda ng line na to! That scene when Eric blamed Ellie for the miscarriage of their child was so disrespectful. Ellie was seen crying alone in her room, grieving. When the doctor announced the loss, Eric walked out and didn't even comfort Ellie right away.
As a woman, I will always have space for empathy in that situation. Grief is not a weapon you use to punish your partner. Eric became a monster because of his pain, forgetting that Ellie was carrying the same (if not heavier) weight of loss. The movie shows how pain transforms us into something unrecognizable. Monsters are created in the slow decay of kindness: the gaslighting, the silent treatment, and the way you use your intimate knowledge of each other’s insecurities as weapons.
Throughout the movie, I saw Eric’s struggle—the one who waited, the one who stayed. Sabi niya, Dahil ako ang mas nagmahal, ako ang laging naghihintay.
But towards the end, when I saw Ellie’s POV, I realized that the person who seems to have moved on or the one who left is often the one who has been carrying the weight of the relationship in silence all along. Ellie was crying outside, gathering every bit of herself just to face Eric with a smile. While Eric was busy being the martyr, Ellie was busy being the shield.
Eric was so consumed by his role as the one who waits that he became blind to Ellie’s silent battles. As a partner, it is your responsibility to step out of your own narrative and reflect: Ano kaya ang nararamdaman niya?
Healthy love requires a safe space where you can communicate, and where your partner can do the same without fear of judgment. You are not a mind reader, but you must be a witness to each other’s truths. If you don't learn to see through your partner's clues, you will eventually end up like Eric and Ellie—two people living in the same house, but in completely different worlds.
Sound and Music Design. I liked the elements of sound. It felt intimate, parang kinukwentuhan ka ng utak mismo ni Eric. Ang isa sa nagpa-hook talaga sa akin sa trailer pa lang is yung stripped version ng Multo. It was raw, skeletal, and painful. Pero I felt a slight disconnect pagdating sa film. Siguro dahil I was heavily siding with Ellie’s journey, and the song was played while highlighting Eric’s pain.
Visual Style. The cinematography was a storytelling tool in itself. Nagustuhan ko yung contrast sa color scheme—making the past colorful and the present grayscale to show the boldness of the characters they have become. For the heavy flashbacks, the colors were filtered and desaturated, giving a visual representation of the emotional weight.
Best example? ung scene na nagyoyosi si Anne after Eric leaves for work.
The Plot. It was real. It was not exaggerated. You know that somewhere out there, it was someone's real-life story. It's relatable.
Mata-mata Acting. There's that one scene. IYKYK!
The Ending. The movie ended exactly how it should. They were back in the place they once shared. A space filled with a decade's worth of their multo. After 10 years, they realized they were starting again.
The ending suggests that no amount of time is wasted if it leads you back to yourself. They didn't end up together, but they ended up whole. The final shot was about the acceptance that they are no longer the people they were in the colorful flashbacks. It was a beautiful, quiet closure—the kind that doesn't need a grand gesture, just a long, honest look at the wreckage and the courage to say goodbye to it.
