Sana Sinabi Mo (I Wish You Had Told Me) (2025) Movie Review

Sana Sinabi Mo (I Wish You Had Told Me) (2025) Movie Review: All Heart

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We didn’t expect much from Sana Sinabi Mo (I Wish You Had Told Me), but we gave it a chance when it appeared on our Netflix feed over the long weekend and it simply felt like a film with something meaningful to say. And undeniably, it does. There’s a lot of heart here, backed by a veteran cast and a premise filled with emotional weight. But sadly, no amount of sincerity could overcome the lackluster writing, uneven pacing, and scattered script that made this film as frustrating as it was inspiring.

The story follows Seph (Juan Karlos Labajo), a young missionary whose father, Otep (Bodjie Pascua), has just passed away. During the wake, a woman reveals that Otep was gay and had maintained a secret pen-pal relationship with a man in Spain. Hoping to understand the father he never truly knew, Seph travels from the Philippines to Spain to search for the man who captured his father’s heart decades earlier.

Despite its core problems, Sana Sinabi Mo remains a compelling watch, proof of how layered and emotionally rich its central idea is. Which is why it’s such a shame that the execution falls dramatically short of its potential. The biggest issue is pacing and writing. The film juggles far too many themes such as religious repression, toxic church leadership, even Martial Law, on top of its already powerful father-son storyline. None of these subplots are fully developed, leaving them feeling like abandoned threads instead of meaningful additions.

This also affects the ensemble cast. With so many narrative detours, none of the veteran actors are given enough space to showcase their full emotional range. The production elements are equally inconsistent. The visuals and costume design were so confusing that, for the first half hour, we genuinely thought the film was set in the ’90s until smartphones suddenly appeared. The tonal and visual mismatch added to the overall disjointed and lack of polish feeling. Still, if you can look past the film’s major issues, there’s a meaningful and deeply human story at its core one that aims to challenge, move, and make you reflect on love and acceptance.

Rating: 2 and a half reels

Photo courtesy of Netflix