All of You (now streaming on Apple TV+) starts with a sci-fi concept, then does its damnedest to not be a sci-fi movie at all. Director William Bridges, co-writing with star Brett Goldstein (Ted Lasso), port over the idea behind their short-lived 2020 series Soulmates – what if you could take a genetic test to determine who your soulmate is? – and use it as a jumping-off point for a relationship drama about people who should be together but, well, just aren’t together, for reasons we’ll get into here. Imogen Poots co-stars, and I’m left with the impression that the movie might fall apart without her.
The Gist: LONDON. In an undetermined near future, a company called Soul Connex will take a large pile of your money in exchange for pairing you with your soulmate. If the test says your ideal partner is Jim or Judy over there, who are you to argue? It’s science! When we meet Simon (Goldstein) and Laura (Poots), they’re besties who banter and poke fun at each other and generally communicate with enough electricity that could be flirting or it could be deep intimacy, and considering there are emotions involved, certainty is not part of the equation. They have a lot in common save for their philosophical take on the Soul Connex thing: Laura wants to take the test, while Simon is more of a traditional romantic. You can kinda see both sides here; she wants to know her ideal partner, while he prefers being free to navigate the mystery of love. Laura prefers the choice be made with her so she can get on with things, but, Simon might retort, where’s the fun in that?
Simon gambles: He agrees to pay for Laura’s test, and the look on his face reads, I bet I’m her soulmate. He’s wrong, of course. If he was right, we might not have much of a movie, or at least a different one where I could see them getting married and using the test results as an excuse to stay together when maybe they shouldn’t. But in this case, Laura pairs with Lukas from Glasgow (Steven Cree), and Simon pretends to be happy for her as she gets married, has a daughter and plunges herself into blissful domesticity. At least Lukas seems like a worthy human being, and is open-minded and generally kind enough to recognize that his wife and Simon are close friends of many years who need each other to a certain degree. Example: When Lukas can’t help Laura in time, it’s Simon who picks her up and takes her to the hospital as she bleeds from an apparent miscarriage.
The plot anti-flows as it hops over unquantified amounts of time to Laura and Simon’s reunions. There’s the miscarriage sequence, a double date with Laura and Lukas and Simon and his girlfriend Andrea (Zawe Ashton), her father’s funeral, and eventually a series of weekend getaways. She struggles with depression, he struggles to find a romantic partner. She stays with Lukas, he only wants Laura. They fight, they have sex, they walk along beaches in the throes of gorgeous bittersweetness. They talk about adult things, they poke fun at each other like they’re still young and stupid (“Did I snore last night?” “Was that you? I thought it was the kraken.”). Is knowledge power, or is not knowing key to fully appreciating the rich tapestry of life? I’m not sure there’s an answer to that.
What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Funny how Apple’s productions are inevitably about near-future tech developments: This, Fingernails, Swan Song. Same for non-Apple movie The Pod Generation. Be grateful All of You is better than all of these.
Performance Worth Watching: Poots’ ability to tap the sweet spot between bliss and misery is a superpower that keeps us invested in All of You, even if her character isn’t always logical or coherent. Her performance makes Laura very relatably human.
Memorable Dialogue: Laura point-blanks Simon:
“Did you pay for it to see if it was you?” she asks.
“Nah,” Simon lies.
Sex and Skin: A few medium-to-rather-warm sex scenes; toplessness; bare bums.
Our Take: All of You hinges on the chemical fire between Goldstein and Poots – they stoke the coals of yearning in such a manner that we get “all up in our feels” to the point that any chinks in the screenplay or limitations of thespian skill fall to the wayside. The weird irony here is, Poots’ character is all unpredictable to the point of being sloppily written, but her performance is superior, while Goldstein’s character is more grounded but not quite on par with his co-star in terms of dramatic range. It pretty much evens out for the most part, both performances being base-level good-enough enough to maintain the story’s core emotional arc, and keep us involved and hoping for the best for these characters.
Although the soulmate-science concept hums along almost imperceptibly in the background – Soul Connex billboards line city streets, commercials air on TV – the plot functions as a thought experiment brushing up against ideas about chance, free will and destiny, and wrestles with whether advancements in tech and science are ultimately good for humanity. How the soulmate test works, we don’t know, and we don’t need to. It just exists, and it’s more interesting to see the ripple effects it has on people and their social and psychological states. The screenplay’s structure makes the drama engaging: Time hops of indeterminate length keep us on our toes, forcing us to orient ourselves to the emotional states of the characters – where they are, what they want now, if they’ve changed at all. It’s a smartly executed conceit that ramps up the characters’ emotional immediacy; after months of years of seeing each other, they’re determined to make the most of their time together, a situation ripe for intensity.
There’s a dramatic turning point in the film when we sense it’s either going to get real romantic or just plain real, and whether you regard the notion of soulmates as a romanticized figment or a tangible will color your interpretation of this romance. Is it beautiful or doomed? Both can be true, of course. We all struggle to balance pragmatism and idealism in our relationships, with notions of slow-burn longevity and the all-too-temporary heat of passion. Love is a broad enough concept to be either thing, and All of You illustrates that in a tender, sometimes deeply engaging manner.
Our Call: This unconventional love story is well-considered conceptually, and modestly enthralling for both head and heart. STREAM IT.
John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.