Only We Know: Tenderness of the human spirit

Death and life are themes served in equal measure in Only We know.  How human connection is relevant to grieving and healing is explored in the film. Only We Know bears the gentleness of a man and a woman, the tenderness of their soul and the fullness of their spirit. It is a kind film that deflects and survives labels, judgment and prying eyes.

If one’s prudence will only be based on the film’s trailer, Only We Know is a template for a May-December affair between a retired Literature professor and a widowed structural engineer.  But the film is complex in its being uncomplicated, intricate in its being simple. To put a label in the relationship between Betty (Charo Santos-Concio) and Ryan (Dingdong Dantes) is to miss the point of the film.

Gen Z will be quick to point out Betty and Ryan are in a “situationship,” a term that loosely means being in a romantic affair but is not formal or conventional. But instead of exploring the label of their relationship, Only We Know writer and director Irene Emma Villamor delves into the lives of Betty and Ryan with quiet yet profound maneuvering sans manipulation. So sincere, that for a drama genre, the film avoids drama and highlights what seems to be the everyday meanderings of the heart.

The human heart is capable of loving without saying it loves this and that. It just shows what love is. And when it demonstrates a love that is unnamed, it becomes more natural, more creative, more generous, more giving.

The human heart is capable of receiving adoration without feeling beholden to the amount of attention it receives. It just receives love and reciprocates it in more ways than one — through a shared dinner, through doing the groceries together, through  laughter.

The human heart has no filter. It captures joy — and tears — in their most raw and real state. It is in its nature to forgive, to forgo, to forget. To learn.

The human heart can be sideswiped, sidelined, dismissed, demoted by challenges but it has the capacity to heal by leap or inch. It surely heals to become tender again. In time. It heals in time. And time can be now or tomorrow or in the future. But the human heart heals.

Those traits of the human heart can be found in the lives of Betty and Ryan — village neighbors who come with their own character defects. And how naturally Charo and Dingdong carry through their roles is a blessing, a treat of this film.

Charo essays the protagonist with warmth and compassion. Her Betty is erudite and ageless. There’s kindness in her tone, in her gaze, in her admission of her frailty. She lives alone, accompanied only by her easel, canvas and acrylic and a nameless stray cat that found a home in her abode. The feline intervention somehow shows Betty is that cat — lost but found, self-assured but yearning, vulnerable yet tenacious. She displays strength in her fragility. Charo has mastered the art of subtlety in acting that even her quiet, purring moments are heard, felt, celebrated on screen.

Dingdong, on the other hand, proves that he is an acting masterclass as Ryan. His eyes register grief and solace all at once. You feel his pain of losing his wife with all the stock of beer in his ref. But you also observe his joy when, without words, you see him believe that there’s life after defeat.

The chemistry between Charo and Dingdong on screen is big thanks to the natural ability of the actors to deliver their respective chops. Of course, Villamor — an expert when it comes to the dynamics of how humans behave when they are in need, in pain, in distress, in love as she demonstrated them before in films like Sid & Aya (where Dingdong also played the lead), Meet Me at St. Gallen and Camp Sawi — did her part in the onscreen attraction between the two.

One would wish there was at least one exchange of sweet nothings between Betty and Ryan in the film to ground and define more their characters but there’s none. Instead, the film is rife with the warmth of human touch.  Only We Know is so nurturing it allows you to find a soulmate in the principles it purveys.

“Friendship is the most romantic of all relationships. Mas mapagbigay. Mas malaya,” Betty shares with Ryan. There’s verity in it perhaps because friendship has no vows of for poorer and for richer or till death do us part. But it is a commitment that when treasured to the hilt even in its imperfection, it becomes everlasting, perpetual. Even more lasting than some marriages.

“We create different connections with different people,” Ryan tells Betty, this time, he has already stopped calling her “Ma’am.” He has also dropped his “po” and “opo” in their conversation, and the curtain of familiarity is opened. Found in its wake is a connection so clean and clear their souls are bared naked.

Connection of body, mind and soul is a cerebral pursuit. It is so powerful that many lightbulb moments are switched on in the film. One bulb that is lighted up is the existentialist nature of human relationships.

It helps that the opening scene of Only We Know was a classroom discussion of Samuel Beckett’s play Waiting for Godot. It laid the ground for understanding the complex and existentialist nature of the film that human existence has no meaning unless people create their own. That in effect, in their search for life’s meaning, Betty and Ryan are no different from Beckett’s Estragon and Vladimir. But Betty and Ryan put meaning to the mundane.

Only We Know is a potent vehicle that runs through the polarity of human beings’ simple and complicated nature. The film implies that the meaninglessness of life is its own meaning, and in a way is a form of death. Ryan’s life attests to it. So does Betty’s. But they make use of the commonplace to trigger the joy they must feel.

Only We Know is compassion that is both light and dark. It is the odyssey of the human spirit that has become tender and kind after its close acquaintances with life’s trials.

One may argue that it is a love story. But one thing is for sure — Only We Know is a story of love, generous, giving and genuine. *