I Love You Forever

And, unfortunately, it is because I have firsthand experience in this. I had to walk away a few times to gather myself. Also, I know he's a nepo baby but I really like Ray Nicholson's acting overall. He has that sinister look that mirrors his dad's and it works well for him.

Hope to see him in more movies.

As "I Love You Forever" (2024 release; 89 min.) opens, Mackenzie attend the birthday party of her friend Ally, and there she strikes up a conversation with a guy named Finn. Finn is super-charming, and Mackenzie is intrigued. At this point we are 10 min into the movie.

Couple of comments: this is written and directed by Cazzie David and Elisa Kalani (both from "Eighty-Sixed"). And for good measure Cazzie also pays the role of Ally. Without going into any of the plot's details, the movie starts slowly and then when the relationship starts to sour, the transformation is as quickly as it is disturbing. Ray Nicholson (son of Jack) is outstanding as Finn, playing a deeply dislikeable character (his dad will approve!). During some of these scenes, I thought to myself "this is in essence a "feel-bad" movie, but it's so well made!" To be honest, I think Ray Nicholson needs to diversify upcoming roles, as otherwise he risks getting stereotyped in a same or similar role. Please note that Diabolo Cody is credited as a Producer, and that makes perfect sense to me.

"I Love You Forever" premiered at the 2024 SXSW film fest, yes over a year ago. I don't recall whether it played in US theaters at all. Regardless, it's now streaming on Netflix, where I caught it the other night. The movie is currently rated 80% Certified Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, which feels a bit generous to me. It is a "feel-bad" movie after all. If you like another take on "modern relationships", I'd readily suggest you check it out and draw your own conclusion.

For those of you that haven't dated alot and kept things on the surface with relationships, this is an uncomfortably accurate depiction of how gaslighting can microscopically start to eat away at your life.

I recognize the behavior of our Lead Male as someone who studies behavior for a living. He can dramatically escalate every situation and immediately be the victim, which further sends him an abusive emotional spiral.

What he does to MacKenzie throughout the movie is tear her souls apart by quickly love bombing her, drowning her in a false narrative of love and affection and sex, then quickly flipping the mirror and ridiculing her, stalking her and mentally abusing her because she "isn't giving him anything in return."

One has to understand human behavior to enjoy the movie. It's a low budget indie with focus on human condition. It does the job nicely.

"I Love You Forever" begins with a couple in bed. However, the guy is a total d*** who only wants sex from the woman and doesn't seem to give a darn about her even though there are hints the woman would like more than just late night booty calls. The woman is McKenzie, played by the always good Sofia Black-D'Elia, and she is a law student. She has a quirky roommate and a close guy friend, and at a birthday party for her roommate she meets Finn, played by Ray Nicholson. Finn is a rich, good-looking, ultra successful man who is the lead news anchor for a local TV station. He begins to smoothly woo her and give her gifts and before long they're head over heels with each other. But he suddenly starts to get very needy and clingy and we watch as the relationship unfolds...

I think this was intended to be a deep story about emotional issues in a relationship, but it doesn't succeed. None of it rings true, the dialog sounds like it was written by a Diablo Cody wanna-be (and I was a little surprised to see Diablo listed at the end as a producer!). Finn gets very needy and it never makes sense -- he's rich, good looking, clearly very smooth and confident around women, so his sudden personality change doesn't make sense. But worst of all, Black-D'Elia makes McKenzie incredibly appealing and her repeatedly making incomprehensible decisions is wildly annoying. I mean, literally the last hour of this film is us screaming at the TV, "What are you doing, McKenzie? What are you thinking of?" The movie means to make Finn the "bad guy" and we certainly dislike him, but he never comes off as more than just weird and annoying.

I love supporting small indie films, so it sort of pains me to speak ill of "I Love You Forever." You could definitely do worse, but I suspect that most people just won't find it an entertaining way to spend 90 minutes.

I don't normally watch these type of movies, but I just wanted to give something random a try and I think because I have had very similar experiences it spoke to me, and because of that I loved it. It's definitely an Indie vibe, but it is funny, dramatic, and although some things are definitely made more dramatic for movie purposes it is still realistic. I think for especially millennials and younger it's incredibly relatable. I believe it will touch a lot of people's hearts in an unexpected way. It was really well done.