Maya (Margaret Qualley) is an emergency room nurse in Boston. She meets Charlie (Gabriel Basso), a Ph.D. candidate studying audio synthesis, while buying a piece of his furniture. They are as wholesome as hot porridge, and after they move in together, the couple begins fashioning the nurturing family that Maya, raised by an inattentive single mother, never dared to desire.
In “Love of Your Life,” a fine romantic tragedy directed by Rachel Morrison (“The Fire Inside”), the fairy-tale love story is too pure to last very long, and like Ali MacGraw and Ryan O’Neal before them, the Boston darlings soon find their bright future stolen from them.
Blind with despair, Maya journeys abroad, where she encounters competing urges to turn life’s page or go on wallowing in a blend of grief and shame. This takes shape in a doting British beau (Aaron Pierre) as well as in long baths and smudged eyeliner.
True healing for Maya can only come from facing her trauma, and a scene involving the gifted Catherine Keener as an unsentimental moral conscience introduces a welcome note of friction. Her sharp edge cuts through earlier exchanges that rely on shallow focus and schmaltz. These moments, though heartfelt, come off as faintly fraudulent.
But manipulation is a given in this brand of weepie, as essential to the formula as martyrdom. If love means never having to say you’re sorry, I won’t apologize for blubbering through this movie.
Love of Your Life Rated R for sex while sad. Running time: 1 hour 46 minutes. Watch on Prime Video.
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