All of You aims high, but the chemistry of Brett Goldstein and Imogen Poots doesn’t transcend romance movie cliches.
Speculative fiction is one of the most versatile frameworks for examining contemporary anxieties. It allows creators to use imaginative scenarios that, while relatively grounded with contemporary reality, are able to refract issues of politics, technology, and the human condition. Notable examples include Black Mirror, Years and Years, and Her. A newly emerging sub-genre is the exploration of romance, like Palm Springs or Fingernails. Apple TV+’s latest contribution to this tradition is All of You, directed by Emmy Award–winning writer William Bridges (Black Mirror’s “USS Callister”) and co-written with star Brett Goldstein, (Ted Lasso, Shrinking). Yet despite strong performances and stylistic ambition, the film underuses the genre’s potential in a work more complex in concept than in impact.
The film follows Laura (Imogen Poots) and her college best friend Simon (Goldstein) as they navigate a world reshaped by Soul Connex, a test that claims to scientifically determine one’s true soulmate. Laura embraces the system, while Simon remains skeptical, insisting that it reduces and misrepresents the complexity of human connection. Over the course of twelve years, their relationship continues to unsettle the tidy logic of the algorithm and push against the boundaries of Laura’s marriage, forcing both to question whether love in its most authentic form can escape the confines of algorithmic design.
Quiet episodic meditations.
Photo Credit: Apple TV+
The distinctive factor here is Bridges and Goldstein’s unusual approach to pacing. Rather than following conventional linear beats, All of You unfolds as episodic glimpses into the evolution of Laura and Simon’s relationship that are stringed together without timestamps or title cards. The audience is dropped into each new moment and left to piece together what has shifted and how much time has passed. What makes it particularly special is that these scenes are not only the landmarks of their friendship and eventual affair. Instead, the film offers moments like quiet conversations outside of a bar, stories about a breakup while driving, reflections outside of a funeral. It’s this rather meditative rhythm that gives the film its emotional weight, inviting viewers to actively engage with the film and invest in the characters with a depth that more conventional storytelling might have flattened.
However, it comes with a cost. The emphasis on the relationship between Laura and Simon makes each character severely underdeveloped. We get hints of Laura’s happy life and of Simon’s career, but other than that, they are so thoroughly presented as a duo that their connection becomes obvious from the get go. While that speaks well of Poots and Goldstein’s performances, it ultimately constrains the movie.
Stuck in its own premise.
Photo Credit: Apple TV+
All of You is also severely constrained by its own speculative premise, circling the same tension without ever fully breaking free. The Soul Connex test locks Laura into a stable, affectionate marriage and, while the film hints at her curiosity about a life with Simon, her commitment to her husband is strong enough that she never seriously considers leaving. There are moments of irony in which she laments the fact that her father never followed his true love, but there’s never enough of a compelling reason for her to do the opposite. This narrative immobility creates a problem: the test’s supposed infallibility leaves little room for suspense or melodramatic escalation.
Such paralysis when paired with the episodic-glimpse structure, makes the film seem more like a repetitive series of sketches that reinstate the premise: “They want to be together, but won’t because of broader reasons”. Granted, all of them with beautiful cinematography by Benoit Soler that, while engaging, remain fruitless. More frustrating still, the broader implications of such a technology are raised briefly in the opening act and then largely abandoned. What remains is a story caught between its central triangle and the weight of its speculative premise, a combination that leaves the drama feeling narrower and, ultimately, rather empty. Relying less on the technological elements, or potentially anchoring the story on the failure of such a test, or even highlighting the fact that Laura was not authentically happy with her husband, might’ve helped for the story to be more effective, or at least, less stuck on its own way.
The bottom line.
All of You really tries to become a notable addition to speculative fiction romances. Bridges and Goldstein bring ambition to the project, crafting a meditative rhythm of quiet encounters rather than conventional dramatic beats, and the chemistry between Poots and Goldstein lends the film a certain charm. Yet these strengths are undercut by characters left underdeveloped, a narrative locked in place by the immovability of its own premise, and a speculative conceit that is quickly sidelined rather than fully explored, offering moments of beauty and weight without ever achieving the full potential its premise promises.
All of You is now streaming exclusively on Apple TV+. Watch the trailer here.
Images courtesy of Apple TV+. Read more articles by Pedro Luis Graterol here.
REVIEW RATING
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All of You - 6/10
6/10
Based in Mexico, Pedro Graterol is the News editor for TV and Film of InBetweenDrafts. He is a Venezuelan political scientist, violist, and a nerd of all things pop culture. His legal signature includes Sonic The Hedgehog’s face.
