Margaret Qualley’s Love of Your Life is human complication amid a tour of grief

Prime Video

Upon watching the trailer for Love of Your Life, the latest Amazon-distributed film starring Margaret Qualley, I was expecting a How to Be Single-esque depiction of finding happiness in singularity via dating after a long-term relationship. I was in for a surprise when I found myself crying not even 30 minutes into the film.

Directed by frequent Ryan Coogler collaborator Rachel Morrison, the film follows the magical, mid-twenties life Maya (Qualley) is experiencing, surrounded by love with her dream husband, Charlie (Gabriel Basso), and their best friend, Jason (Patrick Schwarzenegger). Her perfect life is upended by a shocking death at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, sending her on a downward spiral and fleeing her life by traveling the world. Maya inadvertently embarks on a six-year-long journey to grieve and regain a sense of self, the thread of her loss woven throughout her various locations and daily activities.

I’m typically not one to enjoy a plot centered on, or kickstarted by, COVID, because, frankly, I’ve seen too much of it in the last six years. Maya, the film’s protagonist (and in times of despair, an anti-hero), works as a nurse during the first few months of the pandemic at an overflowing, chaotic hospital, preparing herself for things she never thought she’d prepare for.

I tend to worry that a film with a COVID plot will include at least one segment of characters TikTok dancing or making an outdated pop culture reference that just misses their target Gen Z audience, but Love of Your Life did the trope justice and gave it a fresh perspective.

I was reminded of loved ones who worked in healthcare at the time and would spend nights returning from work, undressing in garages or outside front doors, and showering for an hour and a half so they wouldn’t bring what felt like the plague into their home.

Water is central to Maya’s arc. At each major turning point, she finds herself in front of a large body of water or a small street fountain, and her size compared to it signals the importance of the moment. When she falls in love at the beginning of the film, she and Charlie share a kiss in front of the ocean in New England. A YouTube travel vlog-style drone shot of her swimming nude in the ocean near an Iberian beach feels cleansing, a refreshing baptism amid her strife as she lets herself enjoy something.

Everyone she encounters in the film is grieving someone in some way. New characters in her life, like Felix (Aaron Pierre) whom she meets in the Iberian peninsula, helps her work through her grief by sharing his own. While Maya floats through the film, she keeps sabotaging relationships, hoping to protect her heart.

Maya’s reasoning for her actions is understandable. The bridges she burns reminded me of a quote I’ve seen floating around social media lately: “You need to be a villager to have a village.” Maya doesn’t want a village during her grief. But this film does show the depth of human connection and how we must work through difficulty together.

That embrace of each other’s messiness is something we need right now. Love of Your Life explores human complexity and deep connection that, in a growing digital world, we must hold on to.

Love of Your Life is available to watch on Amazon Prime.