PLOT: Maya, a smart, wry nurse, is swept up in an immersive love, that sets her life on a trajectory she never would have imagined.
REVIEW: While I can’t say that I’m the biggest fan of films focused strictly on romance, I can always appreciate any story that makes me feel something. And where Love of Your Life excels is by not following the blueprint of past romance films, whether dramatic or comedic. Instead, we’re merely peaking into these people’s lives as they go about their day-to-day. It allows for much more naturalistic performances and a story that presents a familiar story while following its own unique rhythm.
Love of Your Life follows Maya (Qualley) as she tries to pick up the pieces of her life after a tragedy. It asks the question: Can you find love again after already experiencing a fairy tale-level love story? Do we only ever get one chance? It also deals with the intense toll that COVID took on healthcare workers and the mental burnout. Director Rachel Morrison is able to tell a story that is so grounded in the human experience that it’s easy to relate to, even if the experiences aren’t similar to your own.
Margaret Qualley is utterly fantastic as Maya. It’s far from an easy role, as the selfishness of her grief and its impact on those around her could easily make her unlikable. Yet Qualley is always able to ground the role, allowing you into her thought process through her eyes, which speak volumes. Maya’s journey is heartbreaking, yet there are still so many moments of hope. She never feels like a lost cause, even in her deep grief. She has instant chemistry with all of her scene partners, which makes her story easy to connect to, even with gaps in time. Not only is it one of Margaret’s greatest performances, but it’s also one of the best of the year. And it’s not just Qualley, everyone here is incredible.
Charlie is set up as the ultimate partner, so Gabriel Basso had a pretty difficult task and manages to bring him to life in a believable way. Usually, I hate the whole “perfect partner” trope as it gives terrible expectations for reality. It doesn’t help that nearly every single person in the film waxes poetic about what a great guy he is. Yet, Basso is able to make it all work. Aaron Pierre is currently tearing it up in Lanterns, but here he has a much more understated role as Felix. He’s given the difficult task of being charming enough to the audience so that we aren’t offended at the prospect of Maya moving on from Charlie. He’s instantly likable, and they handle his entire arc in a very unique and interesting way.
I’ve always felt that Catherine Keener steals the show in anything she’s in, and here is no different. As Charlie’s mom, we get to see the grief of loss through a mother’s eyes, and it’s truly heartbreaking. Her pleading with Maya outside of her apartment overwhelmed me to a degree that I almost had to take a minute for myself. Her pain is palpable. Even Patrick Schwarzenegger is so natural as Maya’s best friend, Jason, a character who avoids a stereotypical arc, and ends up being the heart of the story.
One of the issues is that they do such a good job with both romances, but the space between them isn’t handled well, which sullies it a bit. The passage of time is more abstract, so we’re not able to get a good sense of there being enough time between the relationships. If anything, Maya seems to move on a bit too quickly, and more time needed to be spent developing the space between. Rather than finding what she can be without him, we don’t really get to experience much of that alone time, as the story is always about framing her against someone else.
I was absolutely gobsmacked by Love of Your Life. This is an intimate character study about the ups and downs of life and how we react to those moments. Maya isn’t perfect, and that just makes her more relatable, with Qualley giving a career-best performance. It’s a beautiful exploration of grief and how much we all can process things differently.
Love of Your Life is playing in Select Theaters on October 7th and releases to Prime Video on October 14th, 2026.
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