Love of Your Life (2026) No Spoiler Review: A Nice Little Drama About Grief and Moving On (Not a Romantic Story)

LinkImage

Love of Your Life is a good, if not remarkable, drama about grief and moving on, whatever its trailer promised.

Rachel Morrison directs from a script by Julia Cox, with Margaret Qualley, Gabriel Basso, Aaron Pierre, Patrick Schwarzenegger, and Catherine Keener in the cast.

First of all, the trailer tricked me. I thought this was a romance, and it turned out to be a drama. I don’t know how I feel about that, but my wife liked it, because she’d rather watch a drama than a romance.

It’s a nice little story about grief and moving on, and it was well cast. Margaret Qualley was her usual brilliant self; she can play anything. She dances twice in the film and looks like she can’t dance, which is hard to pull off for someone who actually dances really well. Pretty solid acting from her, with great crying scenes. She’s believable in whatever the character demands.

I’m looking forward to seeing Margaret Qualley in the remake of Possession. Try to catch the 1981 version. It’s quite trippy.

Aaron Pierre is here, and it was nice to see him play a role where he gets to use his British accent. His scenes with Qualley were okay. I think they had a bit of a crutch in that the director probably just let the two of them be themselves whenever they were together, for maximum chemistry. I think it turned out well.

The breakout performance here was Patrick Schwarzenegger. It wasn’t an earth-shattering performance, but I was happy to see him in his most dramatic role yet. For once he isn’t just a pretty face or an asshole rich guy. He got an actual character, and he was pretty okay at it.

It’s unfortunate that I had no idea who played the husband (Gabriel Basso), because he has a major role in this. The film was marketed as a Margaret Qualley and Aaron Pierre movie, but the husband is a much bigger part of the story than the trailer lets on. Apparently he was in A House of Dynamite (2025), but I couldn’t place him from it. There also hasn’t been much press for this film.

The pace was really good, and they took their time building the story between Maya (Qualley) and her husband (Basso), which is the first act of the story. I quite liked the film soundtrack as well.

It was also nice to see COVID referenced, and portrayed in a way that wasn’t cartoonish or alarmist. Just very factual, not dramatic, even though it plays a critical role in the film.

I got emotional a few times, but no tears fell watching this one. It was just okay.

Not all stories have to be a romance, a thriller, or a horror story; sometimes, they can just be stories about life and people trying to live in it. I’m actually taking a bit of inspiration from that.

It was good. I wouldn’t say it’s remarkable. But it’s a nice little story that will make you feel some things. But not to the level that a Hamnet would. But a solid outing for an Amazon movie.

★★★☆☆ for both of us.

Want to see what else we’ve been watching? I’m on Letterboxd.