A Recent Tragedy Rears Its Ugly Head in Margaret Qualley’s Love of Your Life

Love of Your Life is a poignant turning point for movie-goers.

Directed by Rachel Morrison and written by Julia Cox, this gut-wrenching film follows Margaret Qualley’s Maya, a nurse ready to write off love, until she falls head over heels for Charlie. The two soulmates make romance look effortless, gliding through first dates and tough talks with fairy-tale ease.

Alas, it’s no surprise when they are separated by a loss halfway through the film, sending Maya into a violent grief spiral.

One half rom-com, one half contemporary tragedy, Love of Your Life is a conflicting tale of one woman’s battle with loss after losing the love of her life.

While the first half of the film details a fairy-tale romance, the back half sees Maya slowly fall back in love with life as she experiences brushes with new romantic connections.

At its strongest, the Qualley-led project is a poignant addition to the genre of cathartic crying movies. It’s poetic that the film, which premiered at TIFF this year, landed on streaming because it truly is the perfect movie to watch in the dark and sob over like an absolute baby.

At its weakest, it’s a frustratingly surface-level commentary on grief that only grazes the quality performances of its ensemble.

However, what is truly shocking is how Charlie leaves us.

Love of Your Life decides to place this film in the early days of the pandemic during 2020. Hollywood is deciding the COVID-19 epidemic is no longer something that just happened to us. With enough time and grieving, it can now feature as a jump-scare in a film — not unlike Remember Me’s 9/11 reveal.

Our most recent worldwide catastrophe is beginning to make its rounds in the cinematic landscape as the industry attempts to reopen the floodgates in earnest.

To say it rattled audiences at TIFF to witness a nurse navigate the emergency room at the height of the pandemic’s death toll is an understatement. Audience members could be heard collectively sucking in a breath at the reveal, as if we had been individually backhanded by the moment.

For better or for worse, this generation of movie-watchers don’t just relate to Maya and Charlie’s grief; we lived it.

And now it seems COVID-19 is cementing its place as a plot tool alongside history’s greatest tragedies. It certainly feels too soon, but then again, little is safe from the passage of time in cinema’s eyes.

For all that it’s worth, this film handles the topic with as much grace as it can.

Whether we despise this film for the move or champion it for bringing recognition to first responders, Love of Your Life takes the risk to return to the pandemic after society put it firmly in the rearview mirror.

Now the floodgates are open, and we must prepare ourselves for more films to potentially cash in on a tragedy that is all too recent in our own grief journeys.

All that said, if you are seated for Qualley, you won’t be disappointed.

She has become such a compelling and captivating actress to watch on screen, and she brings the same endearing magnetism to her latest leading lady role. This film asks a lot of her emotionally, and the actress delivers tear-jerking performances at every turn.

Ultimately, she helps craft a character who is deeply upset and upsetting.

Maya does unforgivable things in her grief, asking the audience how far we will go to accept that there’s no clean way to handle grief. It’s conflicting to see her be so ugly in her loss, but the rawness keeps this film planted firmly in contemporary drama and far away from soap-TV territory.

Gabriel Basso complements Qualley’s performance beautifully with a dynamic chemistry that makes saying goodbye to him incredibly difficult. Aaron Pierre also demonstrates a profound potential for another leading role in future romances.

The trajectory of the film after Charlie’s death is scattered and broken, but in a way that suggests the non-linear path is intentional. As if it’s a reflection of Maya’s own thoughts after losing her husband.

That said, there’s less justification for the lack of plot, which sends Maya down an uncertain but tedious path. As important as her story is, there’s a lack of care to give her a proper character study. The film often states her grief outright through blatant dialogue rather than showing us through actions.

Thankfully, for what this incompatible tale fails to do, it is a visually breathtaking film.

The story is shot through a revolving door of vibrant, lived-in locations that steal your gaze at every heartbreaking turn. The film boasts scenes shot in London, Portugal, Massachusetts, and New Orleans, giving each location the true movie star treatment. The atmosphere is alive with romance, even when Maya and Charlie’s love story is long gone.

Love of Your Life is a beautiful, tragic, and messy metaphor for loss. And like loss, its viewing experience is rarely straightforward.

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Love of Your Life is streaming now on Prime Video.

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