Review: Hello, Love, Again Refuses to Earn Its Resolutions

(SPOT.ph) When we last left Ethan and Joy (Alden Richards and Kathryn Bernardo) some five years ago in Hello, Love, Goodbye, the two had decided that although they loved each other, they had to be apart, at least for a little bit. Joy was off to Canada to chase her dream of becoming a nurse, while Ethan was staying in Hong Kong to open a bar. Hello, Love, Again pretty much starts where the first movie left off, with Joy arriving in Canada in 2019, and immediately video calling Ethan and her friends back in HK.

The movie then jumps to 2024, with Ethan arriving in Canada. But it turns out they’re not together anymore. The film will gradually fill in what happened, but for the most part, the actual plot of the movie involves the two going into a sham common law marriage situation meant to get Ethan his permanent residency in Canada. Early on, while Ethan does seek Joy's forgiveness, he makes it clear that he has no intention of pursuing her, and Joy makes it equally clear that she doesn’t want to reignite old flames.

Also read: Where to Buy Tickets for Hello, Love, Again

Hello, Love, Again has no interest in earning a resolution

This makes everything feel pretty passive. This is a romance, but the characters aren’t actively going for each other. The movie contrives their closeness through this sham marriage plotline, but it also doesn’t really address the wrongs they did to each other. Through flashbacks, we come to understand what happened between them, and the movie ends up depicting a situation where one character is clearly wrong, and the other is blameless. And it just doesn’t feel like there’s enough done in the movie to really earn a resolution.

Mostly, it’s a game of waiting around for the two to just get together. They’re already pretending to be together, and the film makes it out like it’s just a matter of time before stuff becomes real. And it lays it all at the feet of Joy, who will at one point berate herself for being so weak. This doesn’t feel consistent with her character, who we know to be driven and goal-oriented. She has a future she’s working for, and she won’t let anything get in the way of that. But again, she professes her weakness, and this feels problematic.

More problematic elements

There are more than a couple of problematic elements in this film. There’s a subplot involving another Filipina pursuing Ethan, and this leads to a rather despicable action that gets absolutely no follow up. The plot also hinges on a letter written by a white woman, and the movie goes well out of its way to make it feel like this woman and Joy have somewhat parallel experiences that make those words matter a lot to Joy. And it’s just weird, since Joy is surrounded by people who actually are living her experiences as an OFW, and it feels like the movie might have been served better by fleshing out one of those characters instead.

There are certainly moments of sweetness in Hello, Love, Again. And there’s something to the way Kathryn Bernardo plays the determination of her character, projecting this hardness that feels like it’s been built up over years of disappointment. But this doesn’t quite come together in the way that the first movie did. With Ethan no longer pursuing Joy, there just isn’t any action moving the plot forward. A happy ending feels preordained, and the movie isn’t all that interested in earning any of it.