William Bridges’ All of You is a romantic sci-fi film that pretends to be about soul mates and artificial intelligence, but it is really about the way people sit next to each other when they don’t know what to say. It’s a movie that believes in gestures—how someone hands over a cup of tea, how they pause before leaving a room, and how they look at the person they’re not supposed to love. Brett Goldstein and Imogen Poots spend most of the film doing these things, and it’s glorious.
Simon (Goldstein) is a man who doesn’t believe in The Test, a futuristic device that tells you who your soul mate is. Laura (Poots) takes the test anyway. Her match is not Simon. This is not a spoiler. This is the premise. The rest of the film is a series of emotional detours, skipped years, and accidental reunions. They keep finding each other, like two people who always end up at the same bus stop, even when they live in different cities.
The title All of You is not a declaration. It’s a question. What does it mean to want all of someone when you’re only allowed part? The film answers this by showing us what’s left unsaid. The silences between Simon and Laura are not empty. They are full of decisions, regrets, and the kind of love that doesn’t need to be proven by a machine. When Laura reads her father’s letters, she realizes that love is not always a choice. Sometimes it’s a consequence.
Goldstein plays Simon with a kind of romantic exhaustion. He’s charming, but not performative. He’s soft, but not fragile. He’s the kind of man who would pay for your soul mate test even if he knew it would break his heart. Poots is the film’s compass. She doesn’t overplay Laura’s turmoil. She lets it simmer. Her performance is a masterclass in restraint, and it gives the film its emotional gravity.
The sci-fi elements are mostly decorative. The Test is a plot device, not a philosophical inquiry. But that’s fine. The film isn’t trying to be Her or Eternal Sunshine. It’s trying to be a love story that happens to include a machine. And it succeeds. The futuristic touches never distract from the central relationship. They just add a layer of absurdity to the already absurd idea that love can be measured.
Is it hit and miss? Occasionally. Some time jumps feel abrupt. A few supporting characters drift in and out without much impact. But the film doesn’t pretend to be perfect. It’s messy, like the relationships it portrays. It’s romantic, but not sentimental. It’s comic, but not ironic. It’s a movie that believes in love, but doesn’t trust it.
All of You is effective because it doesn’t try to solve anything. It just watches two people try to stay close, even when everything—including science—tells them not to. It’s a film about loneliness, not as a punishment, but as a condition of being alive. And in that loneliness, it finds something worth holding onto.
Grade: B+. Streaming on Apple TV +.
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