The Love of Your Life: Movie Review

Cast: Margaret Qualley, Gabriel Basso, Catherine Keener, Patrick Schwarzenegger, Aaron Pierre
Director: Rachel Morrison

As popstar Cher once intoned, "Do you believe in life after love?" - it's a rationale that could easily be applied to director Rachel Morrison's latest, a kind of what comes next movie that's neither sappy nor sentimental in its approach.

A relatively charming Qualley is Boston ER nurse Maya, who, after a meet cute with Gabriel Basso's Charlie, falls head over heels. After a whirlwind relationship and subsequent marriage, the pair is settling into domestic bliss - but when Covid-19 hits, Charlie is suddenly taken sick and in a heartbreaking scene that will be relatable to many, he dies via video link as Maya rushes to try and see him in hospital.

What comes next for Maya is a mixture of grief and fleeing as she runs away from the life she's made in Boston and from the pain she feels. After a while abroad, she meets Lanterns star Aaron Pierre's single father and begins a new relationship. 

But the past is never far behind for Maya.

The Love of Your Life is the kind of solid drama that doesn't get made often anymore.

It's reasonably well acted (though there's a lack of chemistry between Qualley and the charming Pierre) and feels contemporary enough to be timeless, but it does little to expand outside of its Eat, Pray, Love ethos as Maya travels the world and hides from the reality that destroyed her.

There are moments that work. A short screen time for Basso doesn't stop him making the relationship between Charlie and Maya feel any less realistic or lived-in; the aforementioned hospital scene is suitably devastating, and the locations are swoon-worthy enough to make you want to plan a holiday as soon as possible.

But the emotional heft appears to be missing here and a third act twist (such as it is) never quite lands with resonance that it should do.

Perhaps that's kind of the point though - life, in parts, is messy and doesn't ever lend itself to neat resolution but Qualley does more than enough to sell the story and the emotional edges that the script holds back from.

The Love of Your Life lacks depth when it needs to and while it feels real in moments, they're too fleeting unfortunately to register as a timeless love story, despite the strong performances within.

The Love of Your Life is streaming on Prime Video.