All of You
It’s hard to root against a romantic drama. No matter how tried and true (or daft) the formula, the pleasure of the genre is grounded in an earnestness we rarely permit ourselves. We are invited, at least for the duration of the story’s telling, to believe with wholehearted conviction in the star-crossed devotion of two, typically highly appealing individuals with obstacles to overcome on the journey to voracious beachside kissing. All of You is one such movie, and Laura and Simon are one such pair. A pity then, that the gulf between the two feels too vast even for the audience to wholly bridge.
At the outset, our central duo (Imogen Poots and Brett Goldstein, respectively) are best friends willing one another towards a new, scientifically proven service able to match you with your literal soulmate (director William Bridges, who also co-writes with Goldstein, has written for Black Mirror), and both are quick to fall into relationships that are plainly all wrong for the simple fact that they’re not with each other. Simon has pined for Laura for years, and now faces the question of just how much his feelings can compete with the ever-turning tides of their lives.
The formulaic nature of this set-up is not in itself a dealbreaker. Nor is the curiously underexplored sci-fi premise that launches the story, which ultimately proves scarcely relevant to the events at all. Additionally, All of You has an actor as unassumingly good as Poots in the lead, and in the moments where it allows her the focus she deserves, the soap operatic shenanigans are not only watchable, but compelling. In her hands, Laura feels like a tangibly real person, still clinging to her romantic impulses as a fancy of an adult life that surely ought to mark the point where she leaves it behind.
As the second half of this love affair, Goldstein is agreeably amiable for a time, but wholly out of his depth the further we go. “You’re like heroin to me!” he declares, the bombast of the line requiring the kind of commitment that’s knowingly absurd enough to undercut it and convicted enough to sell it anyway. Despite his fingerprints on the screenplay, Goldstein feels ill at ease with the unashamed melodrama of it all. When he shares the screen with Poots, it can feel like no less than a tug of war between the big screen and the small, a screen presence big enough to magnify a romantic drama and one small enough to shrink it past visibility. The stalemate we arrive at is watchable, but it’s tempting to wish for a coupling to really root for.
Ultimately, Bridges and Goldstein’s story feels strictly theoretical in nature, even after hours in the company of its two lovers. All the bare bones of a romantic drama are there, but not the chemistry to bring it chugging to life.
Thomas Messner
Read more reviews from our London Film Festival coverage here.
For further information about the event visit the London Film Festival website here.
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