I went into Ganito, Gan’yan, Ganoon thinking I was about to watch the Pinoy version of Lady Bird. At least, that was the impression I got from the promotional clips and the TikToks making the rounds. But then again, almost every Filipina has her own Lady Bird moment—or some version of that mother-daughter lore, if not something considerably worse.

What I didn’t expect was a cancer story that wasn’t really about cancer. I’m tired of the familiar cancer trope where the kind, loving, almost saintly mother gets sick, everyone finally realizes how much they love her, long-buried issues are resolved, and the audience is sent home crying. It works because it is designed to work. Cancer becomes the shortcut to forgiveness; death becomes the deadline for reconciliation.

Ganito, Gan’yan, Ganoon doesn’t quite play along. Paz is not the perfect mother. In fact, she’s narcissistic, difficult, abrasive, and at times almost impossible to root for. She can be cruel and unapologetically herself. And I think that’s precisely why the film works. The fact that someone is your mother and the fact that she is dying doesn’t automatically erase everything she has done to hurt you.

The film doesn’t ask us to mourn Paz simply because she has cancer. It asks us to sit with the much messier conflict between a mother and daughter who have things left unresolved, a family carrying different versions of the same hurt, and the increasingly uncompromising presence of time as death doesn’t wait for everyone to be ready.

What I found most interesting was how the film uses the generational gap to show the different ways people process trauma. Each generation seems to have its own language for pain, its own defenses, and its own idea of what forgiveness should look like. And while the characters do confront each other, the film understands something that many family dramas conveniently forget that opening up doesn’t automatically fix anything.

On how sometimes you finally say what you’ve been holding in, and nothing changes, or when a narcissistic mother doesn’t suddenly become deserving of forgiveness because she’s dying. And oftentimes, you don’t have to forgive someone to say goodbye.

That’s what makes the film’s resolution so interesting. It’s almost an unresolved resolution. There are no grand apologies or miraculous repairs. There is simply life continuing alongside death, people trying to understand each other too late, and goodbyes that don’t necessarily come with closure.

Director Cholo Laurel’s explanation of the title makes this even more interesting. Ganito, Gan’yan, Ganoon are the kinds of summative words we use when we’re trying to explain something we either can’t fully articulate or would rather not say outright. And that feels incredibly Filipino. The film doesn’t necessarily tell us to abandon those ways of coping. Instead, it observes them. It lets these people be messy, funny, defensive, petty, loving, and hurt—all at once.

Forgiveness is something our culture can sometimes treat as an obligation. We are taught to forgive because they’re family. Because they’re your parents. Because life is short. Because they’re dying. But what if forgiving isn’t the only way to love someone?

Jodi Sta. Maria’s Joanne, or Jo, is equally compelling. Her portrayal of a hyper-independent, emotionally avoidant achiever feels painfully familiar, particularly in the way eldest daughters in Filipino families are often expected to become self-sufficient before they ever get the chance to figure out how to be vulnerable.

And, of course, we can’t have a Filipino family drama without the dining-table confrontation scene. With this cast, you already know someone’s about to bring up something that should have stayed buried for another 20 years. Jodi and Agot absolutely deliver. Special mention to Gabriel Lazaro, who adds another layer to an already strong ensemble.

The only critical observation I have is the predictability of the plot. You can sense where the story is heading, and there are moments when I wished the film had given us a little more to sit with, especially toward the end. After spending so much time carefully building these unresolved relationships, the ending left me wanting just a little more room to understand what happens after the goodbye.

For a film about people who spend so much time struggling to say what they really mean, Ganito, Gan’yan, Ganoon understands that sometimes the things we cannot say directly are the things that stay with us the longest.

PHOTOS: IMDB