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Note: This review was originally published as part of our 2024 BFI London coverage. All of You arrives on Apple TV+ on September 26.
Many films have dared to ask if a man and a woman can ever just be friends, but very few have managed to answer in the affirmative. For most of its first half, All of You appeared destined to wind up another addition to this romantic canon, as journalist Simon (Brett Goldstein) slowly realizes his best friend since university, Laura (Imogen Poots), might be the love of his life. So far, so uninteresting, even if the conversational writing and grounded performances helped elevate it above the Richard Curtis brand of high-concept tearjerker. Then, around the midway point, Simon and Laura are prematurely forced to confront this elephant in the room––at which point the screenplay, written by Goldstein and director William Bridges, reveals itself far more emotionally intelligent and less-idealistic in its exploration of their changing relationship dynamics than the lovelorn first act would suggest.
In an undefined near-future where the tech-powered differences from the modern day are subtle to the point of being unnoticeable, millions of people have abandoned conventional dating in favor of “The Test”: a scientifically proven method of finding your soulmate. It’s sci-fi with a distinctly lowercase “S,” as this slim high concept is all it takes for Laura to be pulled from Simon to find love with the Scottish Lukas (Steven Cree), leaving the writer-star’s hopelessly romantic protagonist––still in denial about his own feelings––to begrudgingly conclude that the algorithm works, much as he prefers dating the old-fashioned way. This conceit has been compared in some corners to the Black Mirror episode Hang the DJ, though Goldstein and Bridges’ screenplay has been in development for more than a decade and does its best to evade any overt genre trappings, with its high-concept matchmaking tool never more than a MacGuffin. They don’t care about the science behind it, and they’ve accurately banked on the fact most audiences likely won’t either.
Each subsequent scene jumps to a different milestone in the lives of the central, not-quite couple, beginning with Laura taking The Test, then skipping weeks, months, sometimes years to their next meeting, the ensemble underplaying each moment so it never appears quite as pivotal as it feels. Relationships begin and end without warning or exposition as one scene cuts to the next; a baby can be born and be several years older moments later. The movie runs a slim 98 minutes, but the passage of time recalls a grander romantic epic. It feels longer than it is, and this is the rare instance where that’s a compliment rather than insult. Even when each scene is the next important moment in each of its protagonist’s lives, you manage to feel the weight of all the moments in-between that were left offscreen.
Since breaking out in the U.S. with his supporting turn in Ted Lasso, Goldstein has become synonymous with that show’s brand of nice-core comedy, where characters being pleasant to each other takes precedence over any actual punchlines. On the one hand, that sense of familiarity between the characters is present here––it could never be called a rom-com because gags are very thin on the ground, as much as the characters often share in-jokes. Yet the one area where All of You differs from that streaming hit is its exploring inter-character conflicts, less interested in resolving or excusing the behavior of its central couple even as this takes their relationship into territory that most studio executives would demand be depicted in a more excoriating light.
If you haven’t worked it out from the way I’m dancing around the topic, All of You‘s midpoint sees Simon and Laura embark on an affair, long after she’s settled down with a husband and a young child. This is where the movie makes Goldstein’s sitcom look comparatively moralistic: neither character is punished for their actions and, even more refreshingly, Lukas is still portrayed as a good husband and father, not the kind of boring or threatening figure characteristic of infidelity narratives. Nothing beyond years of emotional longing leads the pair to this moment, and the film around them is uninterested in making them suffer ramifications for their decisions. Rather than spoon-feeding the audience with sentimentality about the pair being destined for each other, it leaves one to decide whether it’s all worth it, even as it doesn’t shy from the allure of a secret romantic entanglement.
As the Internet tends to hate fewer groups with more scorn than “cheaters,” it remains to be seen as to whether any audiences will be mature enough to want an empathetic exploration of affair dynamics. For me, that made this a richer, more grown-up screen romance than any I’ve seen recently––Goldstein and Bridges didn’t need any sci-fi hook to offer a fresh take on an oversaturated genre.
All of You screened at the 2024 BFI London Film Festival.
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