“Love of Your Life” wants to be a serious movie about grief, renewal and travel. It mostly succeeds at being pretty. Margaret Qualley plays Maya, a Boston nurse who loses her partner during the pandemic and skips town before anyone can arrange a funeral. She spends the next few years wandering Lisbon, London and Tokyo, picking up a new romance along the way. The film arrives on Prime Video Oct. 14, one month after its Toronto premiere.
Maya’s Grief and Her First Love
The story starts small. Maya, 26, buys a bedside table on Craigslist from Charlie, a professor played by Gabriel Basso. They fall in love, move in together, and marry quickly. Maya swears off children, but Charlie’s mother Ruth, played by Catherine Keener, watches the whole thing with visible worry. When the pandemic strikes, Maya’s grief sends her running. She skips town, leaving behind Ruth and her best friend Jason, played by Patrick Schwarzenegger.
Qualley sells the early scenes with purpose and warmth. Her stiffness is readable, and her joy when Charlie’s awkward come-ons land is real. The film knows what it’s doing there. It doesn’t know what to do with the rest of the journey.
Travel as Therapy
Maya’s travels are the film’s biggest problem. She shows up in Lisbon, where she finds no comfort in the city’s painted tiles or pastry shops. She meets Felix, a handsome British tourist, and follows him to a holiday home in rural Portugal, then to his life in West London, where he has a young daughter. The setup is meant to be romantic. It reads as a fantasy.
The film explains nothing about how Maya funds these trips. She somehow segued into a telehealth career, and her online therapist tells her they’re “really getting somewhere.” That’s it. The script trades in generic therapy speak rather than specifics about Maya’s inner life.
Here’s what the film doesn’t explain:
- How Maya pays for her extended stays in Lisbon, London and Tokyo
- Why she left her job as a nurse
- What her online therapist actually does to help her
Catherine Keener Saves the Back Half
The film finally lands when Maya returns to Boston to see Ruth. Keener plays the scene with exhaustion and honesty, unpacking her own damage against the greige backdrop of her house’s siding. It’s the first time the movie feels like it’s talking about actual people rather than a lifestyle brand.
Before that, the film leans on its visuals to do the emotional work. Rachel Morrison directs, and she’s Oscar-nominated for her work on “Mudbound.” Her cinematography is radiant, exactingly lit and attractively mounted. Her DP, Todd Benhazl, worked on “Hustlers.” But the images don’t add up to much meaning.
The Numbers and the Release Plan
Amazon MGM Studios is releasing the film in theaters before its Prime Video debut. The streaming platform arrives Oct. 14, one month after the Toronto premiere.
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| Oct. 14 | Prime Video premiere |
| One month earlier | Toronto premiere |
| Before Oct. 14 | Theatrical release |
What Works, What Doesn’t
The film’s title is a clue. It’s a romance about loss, recovery and renewal, packaged with a travel itinerary. That’s the joke Variety’s review leans on: “Grieve Pray Love,” a nod to Elizabeth Gilbert’s memoir “Eat Pray Love” and Ryan Murphy’s film adaptation. The comparison isn’t flattering, but it’s fair.
Qualley carries the film on her own. She makes Maya’s selfish grief response almost rational, and she keeps the character specific even as the script grows vaguer around her. Catherine Keener, as Ruth, is the MVP of the back half. Her scene is the only moment that feels like real drama rather than a magazine spread.
The film never feels fully cinematic. Its images are luminous, but they don’t add up to much meaning. The story is sincere in execution, but it’s a surface-level journey rather than a deep one. It’s the kind of movie that will look good on a phone screen and feel thin once the credits roll.
Get the Notebook.
The day's best stories and every fresh verdict, in plain English, in your inbox by seven. One email a day, no more.