Everyday, I Love You has its story mostly hinge on a choice between two men. The meat of the narrative lies in this one girl having to decide whether she’d prefer being with a man to whom she’s been devoted for a good chunk of her life, or a guy who could make her dreams come true. This sounds more interesting than it actually is on screen. The film makes it clear right from the very start what the correct option is. The story is basically a matter of waiting for the main character to catch up with what we already know.
Audrey (Liza Soberano) is a tour guide in Negros in love with Tristan (Gerald Anderson), who has been in a coma for months. She makes videos for him every day, documenting everything that he’s missing. Ethan (Enrique Gil) is an ambitious TV producer eager to prove himself to his network. Ethan is sent to Bacolod to shoot a new show, and there, Audrey catches his eye. He hires her to host his show, and despite a contentious start, the two grow close as they work together. And then Tristan wakes up, and seems eager to make up for lost time with Audrey. The young woman is then faced with a choice between two men who represent very different urges in her life.
It isn’t a very difficult choice. The film doesn’t take very long to reveal that Tristan was actually a pretty terrible boyfriend. With that way that he’s written, Ethan isn’t actually much of a better option, but the movie makes it clear that Audrey would be happier with her. As the movie gets past the typical cutesy romcom stuff, it struggles to build drama from the non-dilemma that Audrey faces. It becomes a matter of waiting for her to make the obvious choice. That the film takes so long to get to it feels kind of egregious.
The film goes on and on, continuing to build a case for an outcome that it has already oversold. As it heads into its third act, the movie introduces a ridiculous contrivance that seems to cement the fact that Ethan is a better guy. There just isn’t anything interesting going on. There isn’t even the slightest hint that Tristan is in any way the right person for the heroine. And without a trace of tension, the movie’s multiple bid for tears come off as terribly empty.
Credit must go to the production for bringing the usual gloss. And though the writing doesn’t keep up, the direction delivers a facsimile of feeling in the absence of any true emotion. Enrique Gil and Liza Soberano do make for a fetching pair, especially when they’re both smiling from ear to ear. Their limitations become clear, however, when made to elevate the weak dramatic material. Gil doesn’t have a lot of dramatic tools yet, his expressions tending to lack nuance. Soberano still has the occasional slip into an accent when speaking Tagalog, and that distracts from the moment.
Everyday, I Love You keeps pushing for these moments of gravity. It insists that the stuff its characters are feeling matter, that they’re worth crying over. But the drama has nothing behind it. The love triangle never feels like a dilemma. Love triangles in general tend to work better when both options seem viable, when it feels like the fulcrum of this relationship has a genuine choice to make. In the absence of that tension, all the audience is left with is a story of someone who can’t commit to even the most obvious of choices. That’s just not worth seeing.
My Rating:
