SXSW 2024: I Love You Forever
Straddling the line between romantic comedy and drama thriller, I Love You Forever succeeds in showing just how easy it is to fall into a toxic relationship. Writer-directors Cazzie David and Elisa Kalani open the film with an all too relatable take on modern romance. The digital age hasn’t made dating any easier—Mackenzie (Sofia Black-D'Elia) is in a go-nowhere casual relationship with a “human vape pen,” and her friends Lucas (Jon Rudnitsky) and Ally (co-writer/director David) aren’t having much like on dating apps. All of them have their own misgivings about finding “the one.” At Ally’s birthday party, though, a classic rom-com meet-cute happens when Mackenzie runs into handsome TV reporter Finn (Ray Nicholson). They fall head-over-heels for each other very quickly—we’ve seen this set-up time and time again. These two are meant to be together, right? And we should be rooting for them to be together for the next 90 minutes no matter what happens, right? I Love You Forever smartly takes those expectations and challenges its audience with what romance really means in a fraught relationship.
Black-D'Elia’s Mackenzie is a law student with her nose in a book at the start of the film. Once she begins a relationship with Finn, she splits her focus between her career and her new boyfriend. Things unravel once Finn starts to demand more of her attention and Mackenzie can’t juggle it all. Black-D'Elia is perfectly cast as Mackenzie—equally funny and relatable, it’s disheartening to see how the character is treated by Finn as the film progresses. The hopeful spirit of Mackenzie is drained by the time we see her in the film’s final moments.
The most important element in I Love You Forever is the character of Finn. It feels right to see Mackenzie and Finn together when things are going well. But the red flags start early on—Finn comes on too strong, like buying out an entire restaurant for their first date. Mackenzie can’t help but think the over-the-top actions of Finn come from a place of pure love and affection. It’s worth mentioning Ray Nicholson is the son of Jack Nicholson because it feels like he’s inherited some of his father's natural charisma and scary screen presence. It’s hard to watch sometimes—a key scene, one that shifts the film’s gears from pleasant romance to seat-clutching thriller, features Finn losing his temper when Mackenzie doesn’t respond back right away to his texts and phone calls.
Sometimes you don’t know whether to laugh or wince each time Finn does or says something vile—Nicholson’s Finn not only emotionally tortures Mackenzie throughout the film, his volatile performance puts the audience through the wringer, too. It’s stomach-churning to see this relationship waver back and forth between sweet romance and bitter fights over text and phone calls mixed with in-person shouting matches. It’s tragic to see Mackenzie going back to Finn over and over and over—it’s the inverse of a rom-com, we don’t want them together as more and more red flags get raised.
Mackenzie’s friends bring some levity to the film—Rudnitsky as lovable dimwit Lucas and David as the listless yet sharp-tongued Ally feel like they’re starring in their own comedy happening alongside the events of I Love You Forever. Sometimes the shifting tone is too drastic, yet it all feels genuine. You can see the seams of the low-budget production at times, but what drives the film is the smart script. If you haven’t been through as toxic a relationship as the one Mackenzie goes through, you more than likely know someone who went through one or is currently experiencing it. I Love You Forever offers a refreshing take on finding love in the digital age, one that reminds its audience that some things are too good to be true.
