One of the biggest issues in any relationship is trust. Trusting your spouse seems like an easy thing to many of us, but doing so after certain things move in a different direction might make that a little more difficult even for the most trusting of souls. In All I See Is You, we get a glimpse of how exactly that sense of trust can be altered when things drastically change when something that’s seemingly helpful opens you up to all sorts of new possibilities that you never knew were available to you.
After a blind woman (Blake Lively) has her sight restored, her life begins to unravel as questions about her choices and marriage start to interfere with her everyday life. It would be easy to simply believe that much of this has to do with the growing levels of insecurity from her husband (Jason Clarke), but his doubts could prove to be justified as his sense of paranoia grows with every moment she gets to see what the world really has to offer her.
All I See Is You actually features a provocative story that effectively lends itself to a movie on this level or higher. One aspect that works well are the dynamic shifts that are illustrated throughout the relationship between the two main characters. By handling this the way they do, the shifts and dilemmas that these two face with the changes that come their way appear to be legitimate questions if something like this actually happened. It gets your mind moving as you’re waiting to see how it all unfolds.
When looking at all that they’re going through from a mental and emotional standpoint, you would expect that the complications that could fracture their once strong relationship would take their toll in some fashion. Under ordinary circumstances, one might even expect to witness a pair like this handling a situation similar to this in a hard and blatant manner. That’s the usual way we see this unfold in film, but here, these two take a more passive aggressive approach to dealing with each other for the most part.
In turn, this could also bother some people since we’re used to seeing the more dramatic and sometimes violent path being taken. Since we go to movies to watch some ratcheted up kind of drama, wanting to see this is completely understandable. It’s also nice to witness something that offers a different way of handling things. A part of me believes that finding more of a balance at some point could have improved All I See Is You especially as we head toward the finish.
There’s another part of me that believes that the people behind this didn’t want to go all the way on certain things that are taking place. Now, that’s not to say they don’t go to some darker places because they do. I just think they probably either liked the characters too much to really go deeper or they just didn’t know where to go with this to deliver that worthwhile pay off. Going about it this way makes the movie feel like it’s playing it a little too safe at times as we get something that’s mature but also kind of tame.
Even though I can’t say that this is as strong as it could have been, All I See Is You proved to be better than I thought it was going to be. I assumed that it would be the typical “chick flick” with some deranged husband causing a ruckus, but it turned out to be a drama that was in search of balance in somewhat plausible scenarios. When I think about it, this isn’t far off from being much better. All it needed was a little more juice to drive up the emotion and energy of the film. Fixing that turns this into the kind of drama people would love.
Director: Marc Forster
Cast:
Blake Lively
Jason Clarke
Yvonne Strahovski
Danny Huston
Ahna O’Reilly
Wes Chatham
Film Length: 110 minutes
Release Date: October 27, 2017
Distributor: Open Road Films
