“Love of Your Life” Review

“Love of Your Life” is a morose challenge of a romantic drama, so repetitive in its sadness that its story becomes more exhausting than profound.

The film tracks years in the life of Maya (Margaret Qualley), a Boston area nurse who meets Charlie (Gabriel Basso) while buying a used dresser, which kicks off a whirlwind romance as we watch the two build a life together, merging their friends and family, and culminating in a low-key wedding, matching their easy, natural relationship.

After an unexpected death, Maya can no longer tolerate her life in Boston – the people, the routines, the reminders of a prior happiness. She takes off for Portugal, running away from her problems and wallowing in self pity, waiting for something to pull her back from the brink. In Portugal, she meets Felix (Aaron Pierre), a charming British gentleman who is himself dealing with a staggering loss, that of his brother to suicide. The two bond over their grief, and Felix’s resilience offers a possible future for Maya in which she can overcome her own trauma to return and rebuild her life back home.

“Love of Your Life” is, above all else, sad. Margaret Qualley brings her typical off-kilter energy, such that even the happy moments are laced with an uncomfortable tension. After the death that triggers her downward spiral, the movie becomes even more one-note and dramatically uninteresting, despite all of the misery porn on display.

Some of the relationships are left too ambiguous to be satisfying, such as Maya’s relationship with her new mother-in-law, played by Catherine Keener, or even Maya’s relationship with herself before Charlie. Not understanding who the protagonist is on her own makes it difficult to care about or understand her personal journey for catharsis. Who is this woman outside of her relationship? What, or who, will help her reclaim joy in her life?

Gabriel Basso is charming as Charlie, even if his character is written to be a too-perfect ideal of a man rather than a real person, somebody who just happens to be everybody’s best friend. Even if the character is unrealistic, the performance is nuanced and emotive. Aaron Pierre, as Felix, brings some levity to the otherwise maudlin story: strong, charming and romantic while bringing the best out of Qualley.

Qualley’s performance is a little more difficult to evaluate, playing as she is a depressive and self-destructive woman incapable of facing her fears. In one scene, immediately after the death, Qualley delivers a moving portrait of grief, crying loud and ugly, refusing to make the moment pretty for the camera. But beyond that one moment, her performance is inscrutable and detached, which may be understandable in the European scenes as she struggles with depression, but makes less sense in the happy, romantic scenes opposite Basso or Pierre. With slightly better calibration on Qualley’s performance, Maya’s story of love lost, found and lost again would be more impactful.

As Maya winds through her international globe-trotting and finally returns home to confront reality, I was left confused as to what finally brought Maya the comfort or closure she needed to face her grief and the life she abandoned. After two hours with this woman, I was left unclear on what she needed, what refocused her sense of purpose, which feels like a pretty big omission for a story ostensibly about re-finding yourself when your life is unexpectedly shattered.

With some beautiful scenery and moving performances, this film will certainly find an audience of people looking for a good cry. Yet despite moments of genuine pathos, “Love of Your Life” ultimately struggles to deliver a coherent idea of how to overcome grief and rediscover love for your own life and the result is a movie that, despite its merits, falls flat.

Love of Your Life
Rated R for some sexuality and brief nudity.
Running Time: 1 hour and 46 minutes.

Director Rachel Morrison
Writers Julia Cox
Stars Margaret Qualley, Aaron Pierre, Patrick Schwarzenegger, Gabriel Basso, Catherine Keener
Rating R
Running Time 106 Minutes
Genres Drama, Romance