Rachel Morrison is the first woman to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Cinematography. She did so for the film Mudbound (2017). Her biggest claim to fame is her work on the blockbuster Black Panther (2018). She's mainly worked as a director in television. Her feature debut The Fire Inside (2024) was up for a couple of Gotham and Spirit Awards. It was based on a true story. It was mainly overlooked. Her sophomore feature seems like it's also going to be overlooked. It's a low-key, romantic drama. It's not as much of a love story, as it is a story about grief and mourning. It's mainly about how a woman deals with loss and figures out how to move on from it. However, Morrison proves how well deserved and how incredible she is as a cinematographer. No, she didn't shoot this film herself, but, clearly her cinematography skills have transferred to her skills as a director, as the images on display here are quite gorgeous. What's most incredible is how many on location scenes there are and how she's able to capture each place in glorious ways.
Margaret Qualley (The Substance and Maid) stars as Maya, a nurse that works in the emergency department of a hospital in Boston. She grew up mostly alone. Her father and mother left the country, and her only friend is a guy from college. In her mid-20's, she meets and falls in love with Charlie, played by Gabriel Basso (The Night Agent and Hillbilly Elegy), a Ph.D student who's really into math but who suffers from asthma. He's also into audio cassette tapes and he comes from a more stable household, parents who were always present. He's basically held up as this perfect guy and saint of a person. Maya eventually marries him, but, after only two years or so of being together, Charlie dies to the COVID-19 pandemic.
As a result, Maya leaves her job and goes into telehealth, traveling the world. She travels to Lisbon, Portugal. She then goes to London, England. She eventually returns to the United States, staying in New Orleans, Louisiana. Morrison and her cinematographer here make great use of each of those settings. It seems as though they actually filmed in those actual places, and Morrison captures them in a way that makes them absolutely romantic and beautiful, especially when it comes to Lisbon and New Orleans. The film almost works as a sightseeing travelogue, populated by sexy people. Qualley is a tremendous and a spectacular actor, so if you ever wanted to follow a person, as she globe-trots, she's the one.
Aaron Pierre (Lanterns and Rebel Ridge) co-stars as Felix, a construction manager who's from London but who is visiting Lisbon on a work assignment. He's a single father who is on good terms with the mother of his daughter, a French woman. After he has an accident in a bar that causes him to be injured, Maya steps in to help him. He then doesn't hesitate to ask her out. He's only in Lisbon for a little while, but he asks her to come back to London with him, and she agrees. It's a whirlwind romance that happens really fast, if not too fast. Maya feels eventually too swept up, as she has issues from her past that she hasn't fully addressed, despite the fact that she's in therapy.
Those issues from her past are ones that she is purposefully avoiding. Screenwriter Julia Cox (Nyad and The Last Tycoon) makes Maya's avoiding those issues as part of her personality and part of her personality flaw, which is an understandable aspect. Unfortunately, Maya avoiding those past issues means that this film ultimately avoids those issues. Instead of being a film that delves into them, this film is a travelogue that has Maya sidestepping them. The film works as a minor character study of Maya's romantic life, but there could've been a more powerful drama here that is lost to the ether.
The issues stem from the circumstances around Charlie's death and how Maya handled it, resulting in people blaming her. There were a lot of political debates during the time of COVID-19 about government protocols, mask-wearing and social-distancing, as well as the shutdown of businesses. There was also a lot of talk about how deadly and dangerous the disease was to certain groups of people. Charlie was only 30-years-old when he dies of it. Charlie was a strong and well-built guy. Yes, he had asthma, but he was healthy otherwise. Maya was a ED nurse who dealt with COVID patients everyday. Even though she took all the precautions as any health professional would, it's likely that she contracted the virus and passed it to Charlie because they were married and living together.
Maya asked Charlie if he wanted to stay elsewhere in order to prevent such an infection, but he refused. However, in the wake of Charlie's death, Maya not only blamed herself, but Charlie's mother, Ruth, played by Catherine Keener (Get Out and The 40-Year-Old Virgin), blamed her too. Yes, one could argue that Charlie made the choice to stay, but, even after he got sick, Maya waited a long time before calling the paramedics and having Charlie taken to the hospital where he could be properly treated. Days went by. He suffered from asthma, so he was particularly vulnerable. Even though he told her not to do so, as a medical professional, she could have acted sooner and called the paramedics to take him to the hospital. There is a grey area here that provides for a moment of drama, but that drama feels too brief and could've been mined for more
Rated R for some sexuality and brief nudity.
Running Time: 1 hr. and 51 mins.
Available on Amazon Prime Video.
