All I See Is You

Marc Foster seems hard pressed to duplicate the success of his film Monster's Ball. World War Z is among my favorites of his body of work. Which isn't saying a lot. I did like that film. I think his best bet will be the upcoming Christopher Robin exploring the creation of Winnie the Pooh. Unfortunately, All I See Is You is just another forgettable Foster film. I didn't have high expectations for All I See Is You based on the IMDb ratings, which are currently sitting at 5.3. I will say that I enjoyed this film a bit more than that rating would suggest.

James (Jason Clarke) and his wife, Gina (Blake Lively) live in Thailand. Gina was blinded in a car accident when she was a young girl, make her largely reliant on James. James loves his wife and will do anything for her. When the opportunity arises to restore her sight in one eye, James is by her side, reassuring her as she begins to panic. With sight comes liberation. James feels Gina slipping away as her sight leads to new independence. Need is not love. As Gina struggles with what she wants from life, James struggles with the new dynamic in their relationship. As the pair attempt to sort out their new paradigm, anger, mistrust, rejection and sabotage complicate things beyond salvaging.

All I See Is You is essentially a character study. Some refer to it as a horror film, others suspense or thriller. The problem here, is that this film didn't know exactly what it wanted to be. I would call it a suspense film, but driven by the character studies. A film that relies on the characters to succeed needs characters that connect. Characters who we can understand or at least relate to. Unfortunately, the characters did not make a lot of sense to me. The plot was poorly developed, forcing us to believe what appeared to be a loving relationship was glaringly superficial. The changes in the characters required to move the story forward seemed forced. There was not a natural progression. Both characters had likeable qualities, which confounded me. The story was fairly linear with a few contrived twists and a bit of sex to offset the boredom. The trudging, reluctant pace and disjointed storytelling made this film only moderately decent.

All I See Is You seems to be more about the process of film making than the actual story. I think Foster hamstrung himself with conceptualizing his ideas, causing the story to suffer. The film centers on a blind woman. To emphasize the enhanced abilities of people with a sensory loss, Foster seemed to focus on the other senses. The film was extremely aural. There was also a tactile aspect to the film. I appreciated what Foster was doing, but he got lost in it. There were mildly irritating scenes that attempted to project how Gina hears voices. But the bizarre sequences were more an attempt to portray her mental projections. The under water scenes were interspersed in the film and did not do anything to enhance the film for me. They just added to the disjointed feel of the film. All I See Is You managed to have slow pacing and choppy editing, which almost seem incongruous.

The sensuality of All I See Is You seemed gratuitous. It was probably injected to add some flavor to an otherwise bland story. The film had strong sexual content and some brief nudity. The film also deals with the topic of death and maiming. There was also some strong language and alcohol consumption. Overall, the sexual content is the main reason for the R rating from the MPAA. The sex is out of place at times, to include a side trip to a sex club in Spain. It was just another bizarre element to this film that didn't really fit a narrative.

I've seen good. And this ain't it. I have a feeling that Foster may have a hit on his hands with the upcoming film Christopher Robin. But All I See Is You just misses the mark. The story has decent characters whose actions don't really make sense in context. The film has bizarre sequences, choppy editing and sleepy pacing. The story has a couple of predictable twists, but a decent narrative arc. The ending was particularly choppy to the point that I would call it lazy. As if they weren't sure how to end the film. The story itself was mildly interesting to me. Although my mind did wander at times. This is definitely a rainy day, free-streaming film. Don't waste any money on it. 6/10.