All About Love

I loved All About Love. I was indeed, all about it.

All About Love is about two former lovers in their 40’s reuniting under unusual circumstances. Macy is a lawyer who has found out she’s pregnant by an affair she’s had with a married man. At a meeting for unwed mothers, Macy runs into her old flame, Anita. Anita is also pregnant after a one-night stand with a man who turns out to be 19. After this initial meeting, Anita and Macy rekindle their romance. But more importantly, they begin making plans for how to be a family. They decide it is not just them who will raise their children but also lesbian couple Wai and Eleanor who want a child of their own but have no means of getting them. Two children, four mothers seems complicated enough but the fathers of the children, Mike and Robert also want to be a part of this very unconventional parenting situation.

All About Love is hella progressive. I was really impressed and surprised by this. Hong Kong is out here a decade ago making this movie about unconventional families and lesbians that also chucks in a boatload of other progressive points. The film takes time to have discussions and speeches about such things as the marginalization of bisexuality, the cycle of domestic abuse and gender non-conformity. The film also touches heavily on pregnancy discrimination, especially for unwed mothers and in a workplace situation. It could be a negative that this comedy movie takes time out to cover such heavy topics but it works. It feels like the film is saying, “well, we could be having a nice, comedic time right now unfortunately, these characters have to deal with pregnancy discrimination before they can do that.”

While All About Love is filmed like a standard, light comedy, it’s much more than that. Outside of the progressive aspects, the comedy itself can skew pretty dark. There are jokes about abortion and being marginalized in a society. This is definitely a comedy movie with a bite. Actress Sandra Kwan Yue Ng is particularly good at selling this type of comedy. Her portrayal of Marcy is spectacular. I love this character. Marcy is incredibly intelligent, outspoken and opinionated but with a wicked sense of humour. She’s an icon for me, at least.

But for all that it touches on discrimination, the film still remains lighthearted in its depiction in life as a sexual minority in Hong Kong. An early scene shows Marcy marrying her friend’s gay lover so he can stay in the country. Much as this points out a problem, it’s also a very casual thing for the characters. After this, Marcy goes to lesbian night at a local gay club. This scene showed me that lesbian gatherings being circle discussions of The Discourse is a universal phenomenon. It’s fascinating to see how progressive and accepting the characters are in the film while still living in a society that requires lavender marriages and shames unwed mothers.

The film is not without its problems. Not all of the jokes land, for one. The timeline of the film is also a little hard to follow. There’s also not quite enough conflict to sustain the plot. Conflict is generally solved within a few scenes and another problem is introduced which makes the pacing a bit funky. It’s sort of like the movie likes its characters too much to let anything too bad happen to them. But hey, I like them too so I’m sort of with them on that.

All About Love is a progressive and funny movie. It is a great story about an unconventional family of choice with a lesbian relationship at its centre. Overall, the film was an unexpected delight that I recommend.

Overall rating: 7.2/10

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