This review contains spoilers for All of You.
All of You is a romantic drama, both anchored in time and lost in it. Set against a technologically futuristic yet recognizable world, this movie posits a reality where one’s soulmate is merely one eye test away. The company, Soul Connex, is everywhere; its persuasive ads take over billboards and buses. The allure eventually pulls in Imogen Poots’ Laura, a perceivably optimistic woman who wishes to meet her soulmate, and repels Brett Golstein’s seemingly pessimistic Simon, who believes that the test sucks the life out of finding love. Over an hour and 39 minutes, All of You deconstructs those viewpoints, as well as those perceptions of the characters, who have been best friends since college.
In an intriguing hook, the movie only catches up with Laura and Simon when they are with each other. The camera and the editing make it so there’s an invisible string between the characters. They are connected even when space or other characters, including Laura’s soulmate, Lukas, are between Laura and Simon. That string becomes fraught and frays at the edge as Laura starts a family and Simon sees other people. The latter makes way for an incredible performance by Zawe Ashton. Her character has a fraction of screen time, but has one of the most compelling presences. The same is true for Steven Cree as Lukas, who brings a(nother) painfully perceptive perspective to life in All of You.
MORE: Everything We Know About All of You
Because of their talent and the script’s precise characterization, the central relationship becomes all the more conflicting. Laura and Simon’s unspoken feelings for each other become less charming and more uncomfortable as the movie progresses. It’s refreshing that All of You doesn’t shy away from its main characters’ flaws and mistakes but leans all the way into them. This movie sees all of them, even when Laura and Simon push toward and pull away from each other throughout time. That timeline is a bit muddled. All of You relies mostly on slight changes in hair length and styles to signal how many years have passed.
The movie finds a more impactful measure of time in the ebbs and flows of Laura and Simon’s emotional connection. They burn bright and fast before the fatigue of reality settles into them. Goldstein and Poots play every peak, valley, and gray area in between with easy chemistry. The former, in Simon, yearns with his heart on his humorous sleeve, while the latter, in Laura, keeps her walls up but believably illuminates the smallest crack in them. Those qualities make the characters fit together like puzzle pieces until choices in their respective lives make it so their pieces’ edges aren’t quite the same. In a reflection of their relationship’s evolution, time chisels away at them until they’re jagged, sharp.
MORE: Everything We Know About Ted Lasso Season 4
All of You doesn’t make Simon and Laura’s relationship easy to root for all the time, either. It doesn’t help Simon and Laura that Ashton’s Andrea and Cree’s Lukas are good, likable characters. The movie never provides a reason not to want Laura and Lukas’ relationship, let alone marriage and family, to work. Not to mention, Laura is steadfast in what she wants from both Lukas and Simon. When it finally feels like All of You turns a corner with Simon being definitive about what he needs, the movie throws the two characters back into their familiar, albeit frustrating, pattern. So, their relationship is never comfortable.
Poots and Goldstein know how and when to portray that internal conflict. It’s refreshing that Goldstein and director William Bridges’ script encourages Laura and Simon to be all the things that humans are, especially the messy bits. That innate complexity causes friction with the simplicity of finding one’s soulmate. On the other hand, there are some incredibly romantic moments – Goldstein knows how to deliver a love declaration like few others. Nevertheless, as billed, All of You is not a romance as there is no happily ever after. It’s also not a romantic comedy, though its sense of humor is intact. Instead, All of You relishes being a drama about two people whose romance is anything but assured.
MORE: It’s the Perfect Time for Ted Lasso to Introduce the AFC Richmond Women’s Team
—
What did you think of All of You? Let us know in the comments below!
All of You is streaming on Apple TV+ now.
Dreadfully boring, no better than a Lifetime movie. You know it’s bad when you find yourself getting up to go do something else without realizing it. As another site said, it’s just romanticized adultery. Nothing sci-fi about it, she’s awful and he’s just as complicit. The ending just stops abruptly with no lessons learned, and I feel not even a twinge for either of them. Goldstein is a far better writer than actor and she just sits around and pouts like a spoiled child, not to mention far too many unnecessary sex scenes that add nothing to the plot.