Note: This review is from the Toronto International Film Festival and may contain spoilers.
All of You, the unofficial “Roy Kent rom-com,” sees Ted Lasso writer and star Brett Goldstein dabble in the romantic with a time-hopping tale of star-crossed lovers.
William Bridges’ contemporary love story boasts the very same blunt humour that made Goldstein such a riot as Roy Kent. It will surely hurt your sides with laughter as much as it will break your heart with a story of depressing romantic shortcomings. With the scene-stealing Imogen Poots rounding out this project’s leading couple, the two actors transform a problematic love story into a living, beating tale of heartbreak.
All of You is a beautifully human story of love and heartbreak. It taps into a longing and grief that no artificial feelings could produce. However, in doing so, it repeatedly beats our two protagonists down, pushing them to the brink of villainy with every passionate, forbidden declaration of love. This conflicting anti-romance should have us dismissing it for such unredeemable acts of adultery.
Yet, something about this film’s vulnerability and self-awareness keeps us watching to the bitter end. This romantic tale is no easy feat to love, which makes its wiley charms so infatuating.
Certain films would paint Poots’ Laura as the antagonist who seduces Simon into an affair, but this project has her hold her conviction while acknowledging how much pain this arrangement is causing their loved ones. She knows what she is doing is wrong, but she holds Simon to the same wrongs, never falling for his attempts to put the weight of their secret relationship on one individual.
These two people cannot live without each other, but they only cause pain when they are together. The film doesn’t break this cycle but instead explores it from the perspective of tragic soul mates doomed to seek each other out no matter how much distance and time comes between them.
Don’t let the realization this film features heavy adultery turn you off this unconventional rom-com. More importantly, don’t let this premise’s “sci-fi” aspects keep you from checking this romance out. All of You does consider a relationship in a futuristic world, but it is a world that is hardly decades away from where we are now. Soulmate DNA tests and fancy car interiors are the lengths this film will take to suggest it belongs in the sci-fi genre.
If anything, the futuristic dating requirements are a topical commentary on the climate we are forced to navigate now for love. In the end, it is the very technologies Laura seeks out to help her fall in love that keep her from having the life she wants with her true match.
However, the futuristic element really shines in the time jumps. The hopping timeline is a fascinating story tool, cutting through exposition and keeping audiences on their toes. We are forced to pay attention to context clues and scenery to indicate how many years have passed since Simon and Laura’s last run-in. It turbocharges what could be a dull love story without the nudge from the cruel passage of time.
While a light and fluffy romance between these two masterclass actors would be preferred, we need to appreciate the romances that push the boundaries of what we’re comfortable with and reflect a realistic love story that doesn’t withhold consequences for passion.
All of You is no fairytale. It is, however, a tender and heartbreaking portrait of love with the right person at the wrong time.
If you’re looking to bawl your eyes out, this drama’s cynical and cathartic take on the soulmate trope will leave an emotional mark by its final frame.
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