All of You
In William Bridges and Brett Goldstein’s charming and fresh comedy-drama, a young woman in a nearby future takes a test that guarantees her the perfect mate.
Soul mating: Imogen Poots and Brett Goldstein.
Photo courtesy of Apple TV+.
One usually associates science-fiction with a dystopian future, but All of You offers us something different. London looks pretty much the same as it does today, with only the advertising a little more high-tech and the cars and mobile phones appearing a tad unusual. What doesn’t change over the millennia is the complexity of human relationships and this friendship story shows that in spite of the interference of technology, nothing has really changed. All of You has been the dream child of the writers William Bridges and Brett Goldstein for fifteen years as they tinkered with the material. It was worth the wait as the dialogue here is terrific and the twists and turns of the story’s temperature deftly stir-fried. Above all, though, it is the chemistry between Brett Goldstein and Imogen Potts as the soul mates Simon and Laura that keeps one glued to the screen.
Set marginally in the future, the film reveals a world that is not in a total mess, even if old-fashioned values such as accidental (romantic) relationships are a thing of the past (which they sort of already are). It would be nice if some day somebody came up with a futuristic drama that was not all doom and gloom but actually positive. Here, most couples are bonded through the alchemy of something alluded to as “the test,” a kind of AI dating app, but more official. Simon (Brett Goldstein) and Laura (Imogen Potts) have been best friends since uni and are still there for each other, basking in each other’s company and emotionally co-dependant. Simon’s greatest sacrifice for Laura is to pay for her to take “the test,” even though he doesn’t entirely believe in it himself. He reckons that once Mr Right walks into her life, their alliance will be severed forever. And so in strides Lukas (Steven Cree), a dashing man from Scotland who seems to be too good to be true…
Had Goldstein and Poots not lit up the screen, this virtual two-hander would not have worked. And yet the actors navigate the unexpected fluctuations of the narrative with heartfelt plausibility, operating like batteries in a fibre optic wand. Their deepening dedication to each other pulls the viewer in, praying that whatever happens they can overcome their differences. Expanded from an episode in the TV series Soulmates (2020), directed by Goldstein and William Bridges, All of You has every reason to appear insubstantial, and it does keep the viewer’s emotional investment on a knife edge. But we care because we think we can see that Simon and Laura care; desperately. It would have been easy to make a dystopian thriller about the dangers surrounding a dating app, but Goldstein and Bridges have gone for something far more personal. In fact, this pointed, affecting comedy-drama is timeless.
JAMES CAMERON-WILSON
Cast: Brett Goldstein, Imogen Potts, Steven Cree, Zawe Ashton, Jenna Coleman, Éva Magyar, Nadia Albina.
Dir William Bridges, Pro Aaron Ryder, Andrew Swett. William Bridges and Brett Goldstein, Screenplay William Bridges and Brett Goldstein, Ph Benoit Soler, Pro Des Luke Moran-Morris, Ed Victoria Boydell, Music Ian Hultquist and Sofia degli Alessandri, Costumes Nat Turner, Sound Luke Gentry.
Republic Pictures/MRC/Ryder Picture Company-Apple TV+.
98 mins. UK/USA. 2024. UK and US Rel: 26 September 2025. Cert. 15.
