All My Life

I'm not really one for weepy romantic dramas (although I really enjoyed this one) but All My Life is a true story about a couple from my home province of Ontario so I decided to see it last night.  It is actually pretty good and I enjoyed it more than I thought I would.  Jennifer Carter (Jessica Rothe) is a graduate student in psychology and Solomon Chau (Harry Shum, Jr.) works at a job in marketing that he hates when they meet, fall in love, and impulsively decide to move in together.  Jenn convinces Sol to quit his job and follow his dream of becoming a chef because the time to take action is now or never.  They get engaged and begin planning a modest wedding when Sol is diagnosed with a cancerous tumor in his liver.  They are optimistic about his treatment but their friends decide to create a GoFundMe page and plan various local fundraisers to give them the wedding of their dreams.  When his cancer becomes more aggressive, Sol tries to break off their engagement to save Jenn from heartache but she reminds him once again that the time to live is now or never.  This movie is quite innocuous with nothing very earth-shattering or ground-breaking to say but, as I mentioned, I did enjoy it.  Jenn and Sol are incredibly appealing characters and the sequences where they fall in love are really fun as are the fundraising and wedding planning montages.  They are decent people who handle the adversity in their lives with love and laughter and their story is a sweet one about living every day to the fullest.  Both Rothe and Shum give affecting performances (I may or may not have had a tear in my eye during the wedding) and they have a lot of chemistry with each other.  I usually find movies like this to be emotionally manipulative but, while it is tragic, the narrative focuses more on how the couple deals with Sol's illness rather than the illness itself and I really appreciated that.  I liked this movie so fans of the genre are sure to love it!

Note:  Sol proposes to Jenn by having a flash mob sing "Don't Look Back In Anger" by Oasis and their first dance at the wedding is to "Lovesong" by The Cure.  If that doesn't convince you to see this movie, I don't know what will!