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Movie review: MY LOVE WILL MAKE YOU DISAPPEAR (2025)
Who's Sari Now?
Come for the romance, stay for the Cookie-cam!
MY LOVE WILL MAKE YOU DISAPPEAR (2025) Chad Vidanes. Writers: Prime Cruz, Patrick Valencia, & Isabella Policarpio / Cinematographer: Yves Jamero (1.85:1) / Design: Cheska Salangsang / Editor: Renard Torres / Composer: Cesar Francis Concio / Cast: Kim Chiu, Wilma Doesnt, Lovely Abella, Benj Manalo, Nico Antonio, and Migs Almendras / Distributor: Abramorama / Not Rated / Length: 104 mins.
Sari (Kim Chiu) is cursed. Ask anyone who knows the flighty 25-year-old government worker (she issues marriage licenses), and they will tell you the jinx is in. The moment she shows a guy so much as a smidgen of her heart, and he’ll vanish faster than a roast suckling pig at the Filipino wedding she’ll never have.
Sari needs a better support system — or a fortune teller versed in the occasional white lie. She’s close with her landlady, Lala (Peewee O'Hara), which makes the latter’s sudden, plot-advancing demise even harder for Sari to bear. Fortunately for her, the same handsome stranger she prevents from jumping to a watery grave is none other than Jolo (Paulo Avelino), the new owner of Tahanan Homes, the apartment complex with Technicolor awnings Lala willed to her grandson. Diabetics beware: with haphazard plotting like this, you’re going to need a double-shot of Ozempic to make it through My Love Will Make You Disappear.
When the two finally lock lips, it’s not so much a kiss as it is actors smushing faces hard enough to set the camera swirling, music swelling, and fountains ejaculating; you know the drill. Adding to the smush is shallow-focus cinematography that appears mightily beholden to the AI Depth Blur filter on a smartphone. And which one of the three screenwriters thunk up a deaf character whose sole purpose is to read Jolo's lips while he's on the phone telling the bank his decision to sell? Not to dampen romantic dispersions, but Lala did leave the property to Jolo. It’s his to do with it what he wants, and if that includes paying off a debt, the mob doesn’t care where the cash comes from, just as long as there’s enough to cover the vig.
Too much of the couple’s time spent together is steeped in telegraphed preposterousness. Sari pretends to be Lala’s ghost, and schmuck Jolo bites faster than a mackerel targeting a hooked worm. The moment it begins to drizzle, a running motif triggers flashbacks to the pre-credits thunderstorm responsible for Sari’s pathos-laden breakdowns. (It was on just such a rainy night that Sari’s mother first put the abracadabra on her daughter.) One such episode ends with Jolo extricating Cookie, Sari’s pet guinea pig, from a drain pipe. Where can you find greater drama than that? There is, however, one flash of brutal honesty: “Who would like you?” Jolo asks Sari. “You're weird, annoying, and crazy.” True that.
Reels after the mobsters make their first appearance, the boys show up again at the apartment, unannounced, looking to claim Jolo. It’s here that Sari learns of Jolo’s decision to sell. As much as I winced under the weight of the fluff that consumed the first half, I found myself longing for those whimsical moments of frippery once the earnestness took over. Given a heroine who is not afraid of getting hurt as much as she's afraid of hurting someone else, I left the movie wondering, “Who’s Sari now?” No stars.
Here's something you might be interested in.
Movie review: MY LOVE WILL MAKE YOU DISAPPEAR (2025)
Who's Sari Now?
Movie review: MY LOVE WILL MAKE YOU DISAPPEAR (2025)
Who's Sari Now?
Come for the romance, stay for the Cookie-cam!
MY LOVE WILL MAKE YOU DISAPPEAR (2025) Chad Vidanes. Writers: Prime Cruz, Patrick Valencia, & Isabella Policarpio / Cinematographer: Yves Jamero (1.85:1) / Design: Cheska Salangsang / Editor: Renard Torres / Composer: Cesar Francis Concio / Cast: Kim Chiu, Wilma Doesnt, Lovely Abella, Benj Manalo, Nico Antonio, and Migs Almendras / Distributor: Abramorama / Not Rated / Length: 104 mins.
Sari (Kim Chiu) is cursed. Ask anyone who knows the flighty 25-year-old government worker (she issues marriage licenses), and they will tell you the jinx is in. The moment she shows a guy so much as a smidgen of her heart, and he’ll vanish faster than a roast suckling pig at the Filipino wedding she’ll never have.
Sari needs a better support system — or a fortune teller versed in the occasional white lie. She’s close with her landlady, Lala (Peewee O'Hara), which makes the latter’s sudden, plot-advancing demise even harder for Sari to bear. Fortunately for her, the same handsome stranger she prevents from jumping to a watery grave is none other than Jolo (Paulo Avelino), the new owner of Tahanan Homes, the apartment complex with Technicolor awnings Lala willed to her grandson. Diabetics beware: with haphazard plotting like this, you’re going to need a double-shot of Ozempic to make it through My Love Will Make You Disappear.
When the two finally lock lips, it’s not so much a kiss as it is actors smushing faces hard enough to set the camera swirling, music swelling, and fountains ejaculating; you know the drill. Adding to the smush is shallow-focus cinematography that appears mightily beholden to the AI Depth Blur filter on a smartphone. And which one of the three screenwriters thunk up a deaf character whose sole purpose is to read Jolo's lips while he's on the phone telling the bank his decision to sell? Not to dampen romantic dispersions, but Lala did leave the property to Jolo. It’s his to do with it what he wants, and if that includes paying off a debt, the mob doesn’t care where the cash comes from, just as long as there’s enough to cover the vig.
Too much of the couple’s time spent together is steeped in telegraphed preposterousness. Sari pretends to be Lala’s ghost, and schmuck Jolo bites faster than a mackerel targeting a hooked worm. The moment it begins to drizzle, a running motif triggers flashbacks to the pre-credits thunderstorm responsible for Sari’s pathos-laden breakdowns. (It was on just such a rainy night that Sari’s mother first put the abracadabra on her daughter.) One such episode ends with Jolo extricating Cookie, Sari’s pet guinea pig, from a drain pipe. Where can you find greater drama than that? There is, however, one flash of brutal honesty: “Who would like you?” Jolo asks Sari. “You're weird, annoying, and crazy.” True that.
Reels after the mobsters make their first appearance, the boys show up again at the apartment, unannounced, looking to claim Jolo. It’s here that Sari learns of Jolo’s decision to sell. As much as I winced under the weight of the fluff that consumed the first half, I found myself longing for those whimsical moments of frippery once the earnestness took over. Given a heroine who is not afraid of getting hurt as much as she's afraid of hurting someone else, I left the movie wondering, “Who’s Sari now?” No stars.