This is a love story between a nepo baby from a Spanish lineage, Cisco (Donny Pangilinan), and a Tarlakeña, Cheska (Belle Mariano), who lives in a household where domestic violence is normalized.

The story kicks off with a “breakup trip,” where you quickly realize Cheska is a spectral presence — a narrative device used to walk us through their relationship timeline, marked by a series of different wigs.

Packaged in a Star Cinema formula and helmed by the Philippines’ own Nora Ephron, Cathy Garcia-Sampana, this is my first introduction to DonBelle. I knew nothing about these actors and, on first viewing, they are genuinely impressive performers, enhanced by effective cinematography. They are natural, conversational, and look cute together, wigs notwithstanding. And the box office certainly reflects that draw. On its opening day, May 27, 2026, it pulled in P12 million, the highest opening for a local film this year.

So, the lean production shows just how much faith the studio has in the love-team machine — a marketing powerhouse that’s been feeding fans’ fantasies since I was in high school more than 20 years ago. Plus, we have Joross Gamboa once again cast as the wacky best friend — a talented actor stuck in a local cinema stereotype.

So, the leads’ real names are Francisco and Francisca, acting as male and female mirrors of each other. They are both brilliant at strategy and creative pitches, meeting at an ad agency where Cisco falls for Cheska because she’s the only one who applauds his pitch.

Written by Vanessa R. Valdez, the dialogue thankfully feels less like screenplay writing and more like overheard conversations between actual young professionals. The banter has rhythm, and the arguments feel spontaneous.

Even the scenes involving creative brainstorming and client pitches feel dynamic. There is a believable understanding of workplace dynamics — the insecurity of being overshadowed, the exhaustion of proving oneself, and the pressure to stay relevant in an industry that monetizes innovation.

At first, the movie sets up a believable conflict rooted in Cisco’s need for validation versus Cheska’s need for stability. We see Cisco’s emotional dependency on anyone who “fangirls” over him, which foreshadows the cracks in their foundation.

Their fights initially emerge from recognizable adult anxieties: ambition, pride, class difference, and fear of inadequacy. The film appears poised to explore how love survives when one partner begins to outgrow the other professionally.

However, the movie fatally misunderstands the difference between romantic conflict and emotional toxicity.

Cisco is no longer a flawed guy, but a dangerous, red-flag narcissistic partner. His insecurity no longer comes from tragic vulnerability, but from repeated emotional aggression, verbal abuse, and resentment toward Cheska’s success so deep that her achievements feel like personal attacks on his fragile masculinity.

The problem is not that he makes mistakes, as great romantic dramas are built on mistakes and wrong decisions. The problem is that the script repeatedly frames his abusive behavior as a mere mistake rather than revealing it as a core part of his character.

This is where the movie fails.

A love story only works when the audience continues believing there is something worth saving between the two characters. Even in stories about heartbreak, betrayal, or failure, the audience must still sense emotional safety, tenderness, or genuine mutual regard beneath the conflict.

Tayo sa Wakas strips all of that away. Cisco becomes so emotionally abusive that you stop rooting for them to stay together and actually start rooting for Cheska to leave.

Instead of presenting Cisco as a man capable of growth, the film repeatedly reveals someone incapable of loving a woman who outshines him. His jealousy is not circumstantial at all. It is deeply embedded in his character. His love becomes conditional on Cheska remaining emotionally and professionally smaller than him. Once she succeeds independently, his admiration curdles into hostility.

There is no love there.

And Cheska, in a stunningly beautiful argument in the middle of a pedestrian lane, expresses this realization. At first, I thought: Wow! Finally! Something new! She finally realizes that Cisco's attachment is not equivalent to real love!

But I was wrong.

The movie drops a plot-twist climax that once again collapses my hopes for local mainstream cinema. A twist designed to rescue Cisco through one of the most recycled manipulative devices in melodrama.

To add insult to injury, Epy Quizon’s character eventually insists that the couple “truly loved each other,” essentially spoon-feeding the audience the idea that abuse is love. It is a dangerous move that only emphasizes the movie’s structural weakness.

The result is a film caught between two incompatible intentions. It wants to portray a deeply flawed man realistically, yet it also wants the audience to continue idealizing the romance. It wants emotional realism, but also the fantasy mechanics of a love-team film.

Those two goals eventually sabotage each other.

Without the machinery of fandom surrounding its leads, Tayo sa Wakas becomes difficult to accept as a sweeping love story. Without that machinery, it becomes a portrait of a woman slowly losing herself to a man whose love is inseparable from his ego.

Cisco talks about “disrupting the formula” in his ad pitches, but the movie fails to sell its own story. If this script had been pitched inside the very agency the film portrays, one imagines Cheska herself raising her hand and saying the one thing the movie never quite understands:

This campaign needs a complete rewrite.

2 out of 5 stars

Now showing in cinemas nationwide