Is it just me or?
I love Park Eun Bin. She's versatile and a really good actress but I can't seem to feel the chemistry between her and any of her onscreen partners in all her series I've watched (ATTY. WOO, CASTAWAY DIVA, WONDERFOOLS).
This is why her role in HELLO MY TWENTIES fit her well for me.😁
Waiting for her Rich Woman Character Era.
Just watched THE LOVED ONE and it’s really heavy for me. I’ve been breathing deep since five minutes ago, and not a lot of movies do this to me.
The movie follows Elie (Anne) and Eric (Echo). At first, Elie is portrayed as a typical rich girl, someone who has the time and freedom to “find herself” and search for meaning in life. Meanwhile, Eric feels more grounded in reality: a middle-class man who needs stability, a job, and income to provide. He doesn’t really have the luxury to pause and ask existential questions because life itself already demands too much from him.
Dito pa lang, magkaiba na agad yung perspective nila sa buhay. That’s why in the first half of the movie, it was easy to think na si Eric ang mas nagmahal.
The acting from Anne and Echo made everything heavier. Some scenes genuinely felt too real, parang pinagdaanan na talaga nila before yung emotions ng characters. The dialogue also worked well for me because it didn’t feel forced. Walang masyadong unnecessary lines.
What really surprised me was how the movie slowly changes your perspective. The opening line makes it sound so clear who loved more and who was “the loved one,” but as the story continues, you realize they were both loved, just in ways that were never compatible with each other.
I could sympathize with Eric because from his perspective, parang ang hirap intindihin ni Elie. If you already have love, stability, and someone willing to stay, what more meaning are you still searching for? But when the scenes continued and focused more on Elie’s POV, I gradually understood her, especially about marriage. She loved Eric, wanted to be with him, but still feared the permanence and weight that came with it. And somehow, that fear felt painfully real.
The conversations when they were hurting each other completely changed how I viewed them. The line about their child especially made me pause and literally go, “whattt???” kay Eric. That was the moment I stopped fully taking sides.
Also the theme of letting go stood out to me. Even if the ending didn’t completely satisfy me, ramdam mo yung pagbitaw between them. Not because they stopped loving each other, but because sometimes love alone still isn’t enough to make two people fit into each other’s lives kahit pa ang tagal na nila together (naalala ko dina ang kathniel dito).
Also, the way the movie presented past and present timelines reminded me of Better Call Saul, especially with the black-and-white scenes representing the present. It gave the story this quiet feeling of emotional aftermath, like you were watching memories and emotions slowly unfold instead of just being directly explained.
By the end, I honestly didn’t know anymore who the “loved one” really was, or if the point was that they both were.
I'll give it a 4/5