But I left with little love for this love story.No, I’m not in the mood for a four-hankie romance, but someone just might be. And as I mentioned, it could’ve been worse. Even as Jenn implores us to live each day so we’ll remember it, this film is utterly forgettable.Īll My Life, as a romance, may work for some. The infusion of the threat of untimely death might ramp up the melodrama, but it doesn’t infuse much real tension or emotion into the film. And even when they do formalize their relationship, it’s a purely secular ceremony, officiated not by a pastor, but by their pals.Īnd while yes, it’s clear that Jenn and Sol love each other, their love feels like a Thomas Kinkaid painting: pretty, predictable, pedantic. The couple has sex and cohabitates before they officially seal the deal. Even the language isn’t too bad.īut if you’re looking for a by-the-book, God-honoring relationship, you won’t find it here. Sex is suggested only through a bit of bare-shoulders, under-the-covers cuddling. Alas.Īll My Life does keep its romantic nose pretty clean by 21 st-century standards. Given the movie’s true-life bona fides, you’d think it’d have a little more life itself. “We had the choice to either give in to the fear that Sol’s cancer prognosis had laid upon us, or, to move forward with every ounce of love and support we’d be given, making the most of our time we had left together.” “We were two very ordinary individuals who found ourselves in a very extraordinary situation,” she wrote. In fact, when the movie’s trailer was released, Jenn also released a letter about her real-world relationship with Sol.

(He goes shirtless elsewhere, too.) Jenn wears a bikini.Īll My Life is based on the real-life romance of Solomon Chau and Jennifer Carter. Women wear clothes that bare both midriff and cleavage.

One female friend teases another about having a crush on a bartender. Someone quips that the couch might be Dave’s longest-lasting relationship. One of Sol’s pals (Dave) waxes poetic about Sol’s old couch-staying that he spent many a night on the couch when he was “between places.” “You mean between girlfriends,” another pal corrects him. Some meet by flirting with each other at a bar. Other friends have active love lives too. And when they decide to move in together, Jenn extracts several promises from Sol-including that they’ll regularly have “sex before dinner.” (The two begin kissing and Sol pulls her into the bedroom, suggesting that it must be about dinner time.) Jenn kisses Sol on their first “date.” We don’t know how many hours or days or months it takes for them to sleep together, but it doesn’t take long in the movie’s obligatory, five-minute dating montage to see the couple cuddling between the sheets. “His name’s Otis,” he says.Īnd Otis, of course, isn’t the only thing that showed up.

Six weeks later, Jenn comes home and finds that Sol bought a dog. No reason to worry about a life cut short. Afterward, he joked that if they got more bad news, they should buy a dog.īut the physicians, initially, were happy: There’s no reason, they said, to not plan the wedding. Doctors removed it, along with a third of Sol’s liver. But a deeper look showed a tumor down in the gut.

At first, the doctors thought it was just an ulcer. The engagement ring was barely out of the box before, late one night, Sol collapsed on the floor on the way to the bathroom. It was just like a scene from a schmaltzy romance movie. And then one day, shortly after Thanksgiving, Sol popped the question in front of all their serenading friends. By saving the money, perhaps he’d be able to quit that much sooner. Sol hated his job and wanted to be a chef. They dated for a while and then moved in together-a move, Jenn suggested, that just made sense. Cancer wasn’t in the mix when they first met in the bar-Sol trying desperately to be charming and witty, with Jenn smiling at him in spite of herself. The relationship didn’t start out that way, naturally. You could call it a lover’s triangle of sorts: Jennifer loves Solomon.

All my life