REVIEW: ‘ONLY WE KNOW’

Are they going to kiss? Will they end up sleeping together?

These are the questions that run through your mind while watching Star Cinema’s latest drama, Only We Know, starring Charo Santos-Concio and Dingdong Dantes.

Written and directed by Irene Emma Villamor, known for moody, reflective love stories (Sid & Aya, Ulan), Only We Know may be her most inspired work yet. Here, she immediately opens the film with references to Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot to frame the audience’s expectations of the story’s themes.

The story follows senior citizen Betty (Santos-Concio), a retired philosophy professor, and Ryan (Dantes), a widower who looks to be in his 40s. They have lived next to each other for years in an affluent enclave but only begin to connect after a shift in circumstance. Betty lives alone, with no husband or children. Ryan, still grieving, also keeps to himself.

Villamor’s visual sensibility leans heavily into American cinema aesthetics. The film looks like it could be set in the Hamptons. The interiors, the supermarket, the hospital waiting room, even the tableware — everything appears stylish, composed and tasteful.

But Only We Know is more than just pretty. Her storytelling is unhurried yet purposeful, allowing room for emotional nuance and textured silences. The narrative structure is focused and deliberate, as Betty and Ryan’s connection builds slowly and organically.

Sure, a familiar device pushes them together: when Betty drops a grocery bag and fruits scatter, Ryan steps in to help, and that moment of assistance gives him the chance to enter her home. But this cliché plays with charm.

Villamor favors restraint. She avoids conventional emotional climaxes and leans toward quieter, more delicate textures. Conversations that develop their intimacy are often inaudible, either muted or overlaid with music. We do not hear what is said, but we feel its substance. This decision avoids potentially overwrought dialogue in favor of tone and subtext, allowing us to sit with the characters in their tentative unfolding.

What follows is a slow burn. Not charged with erotic tension but shaped by affection, curiosity, shared melancholy, and quiet respect. There is attraction between them, though not in the usual romantic arc. It feels magnetic rather than sexual.

Dantes and Santos-Concio do not generate heat, but their scenes together hum with something steady and true. He watches her with tenderness, and Villamor lights Betty with a soft radiance that makes her presence captivating.

There is no major conflict, no third-act explosion. That works. Their relationship is still taking shape, and the film wisely allows space for that to happen without unnecessary plot mechanics. It avoids melodrama and chooses emotional calibration instead.

Some tropes still appear, but they are used with confidence. Even the flashbacks land with weight, not exposition. The storytelling remains tight, assured, and emotionally precise.

Much like Godot, the film contemplates waiting. Waiting for healing, for closure, for a shift. It reflects how life can often feel stuck in limbo, and how grief and loss are not limited to death, but show up in missed chances and small disappointments.

There is a bit of foreshadowing — a scar on the body, a reminder for a follow-up medical check — that hints at a looming revelation. This could have been left out, as the film’s ideas are already clearly expressed. But perhaps the studio execs needed a dramatic anchor for broader appeal.

Still, it works. Only We Know resonates because it centers on our inherent need for connection and shows how some relationships resist labels. And life — and waiting — becomes more bearable, even beautiful, when someone truly sees us.

4 out of 5 stars

Now showing in cinemas