I LOVE YOU FOREVER - Mark Reviews Movies

I Love You Forever, Utopia

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Review by Mark Dujsik | February 13, 2025

On paper, Finn (Ray Nicholson) is the perfect sort of boyfriend. He has a well-paying job as a TV journalist, allowing him a luxurious lifestyle, and as his work requires, he seems to really listen to and engage with other people, especially those close to him. He's smart and funny and handsome, as well as affectionate and attentive and awfully charming. I Love You Forever presents a guy who seems too good to be true to Mackenize (Sofia Black-D'Elia), the lovelorn protagonist of what looks like to be a typical romantic comedy. That's because it is all phony in increasingly uncomfortable and distressing ways.

The film, co-written and co-directed by Cazzie David and Elisa Kalani, is sort of a takedown of the high expectations established by decades of seemingly innocent romantic comedies. Here's the flip side, essentially, of the traditional male lead of such a story—the one who is the perfect sort of boyfriend, because he's romantic in all the right ways or because whatever superficial problems he might possess in his life are hiding just how ideal a mate he could be. Finn's character suggests that those superficial issues aren't just skin-deep, while the kind of actions so often romanticized in romantic comedies would probably point to unhealthy behavior.

What's fascinating about the film, a feature debut for both of its filmmakers, is how the tone here shifts in subtle ways, until it's difficult to remember just how breezily and light-heartedly the tale begins. We meet Mackenzie, a law student who might like a serious or serious-ish romantic relationship if one came along. At the moment, she's in a relationship of sexual convenience with Jake (Raymond Cham Jr.), who isn't looking for any kind of commitment and can barely commit an ounce of attention to Mackenzie whenever he wants her to come over to his place.

Everything changes for her, though, when she meets Finn, in a genuine meet-cute from your average romantic comedy, at a birthday outing for her roommate Ally (David). They almost bump into each other just outside the restroom at a club, and soon enough, Finn has found his way over to Mackenzie again. They talk in an easy and amusing and clearly loaded sort of way, and after Mackenzie and Ally and their mutual friend Lucas (Jon Rudnitsky) realize that Finn is legitimate dating material, Mackenzie is quick to accept a dinner date with the guy.

There's no will-they-or-won't-they shenanigans to be found here. Finn offers to take Mackenzie to her favorite restaurant, but after she mentions that she finds public first dates extremely awkward, he simply makes a call and has the restaurant close down to everyone but the two of them. It's quite sweet, if a bit excessive, but hey, what does one expect from material like this?

Whatever expectations one might have for this story, though, should probably be put aside. The two start dating. Months pass, and Finn's big gestures, including telling Mackenize that he loves her for the first time while live on the air, become the norm. He's there with a cup of coffee for Mackenzie before she even says or knows she wants one, and again, it all looks quite sweet. Imagine actually trying to live with that day-in and day-out, however.

That's the gag of the film, although David and Kalani are wise enough not to play it as a joke. Finn is the first person to point out that he has issues—that his mother left him and his father when he was a kid, that the only other serious romantic relationship from his past ended when his girlfriend cheated on him, that he's insecure and filled with doubts about how others do or will treat him. All of that may be true, of course, although the screenplay and Nicholson's performance are clever in how it makes us wonder about the guy's sincerity in terms of both romance and what kind of person he imagines himself to be.

The whole thing becomes quite dark, as Finn reveals some of his true colors and Mackenzie, who either can't or won't accept the harsh reality that's right in front of her about her "perfect" boyfriend, just keeps going along with relationship. The guy begins as an apparently nice one and becomes clingy, insisting that they express love at every moment and, at one of the multiple turning points of our perspective of him, talk to each other every night before going to bed. That kind of behavior becomes possessive and jealous, and it's only a matter of time, really, before that transforms into Finn attempting to control every part of his relationship with Mackenzie and, because the bond has become a co-dependent one, everything about her, too, by extension.

It's quite frightening, because Nicholson is so committed to this role and Black-D'Elia so sympathetically portrays how willing Mackenzie is to let this relationship suffocate her, since she genuinely does love the guy—or, at least, the idea of what he represents or might have been. There's a level of specificity to the characters, in terms of Finn's deeds and how Mackenzie exists in a kind of contradictory state of awareness and denial, that's especially disturbing.

David and Kalani understand these people and this kind of relationship, presenting it here for what it is. Even if I Love You Forever ends with a twisted punch line that makes us slightly re-evaluate what has come before it, the impact of the depiction until that point is tough to shake.

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