All Shall Be Well

Where I live, gay marriage has been legal for almost two decades. There are legal adults who have never known a time where two women or two men couldn’t get married. Because of this, LGBTQ* activism has taken on a different role and focus in my country. And living here spoiled me. I began to take the rights won within my lifetime for granted. All Shall Be Well is a deeply sad movie about why legal support to gay couples is so incredibly necessary.

Pat and Angie have been together for 30 years. Living in Hong Kong, the two have created a home and found a community. They’re even close with Pat’s family. It seems a charmed, romantic existence. Until Pat passes away. Not only devastated by the loss of her partner, Angie also finds that she has no legal protections. The couple weren’t married and Pat never wrote a will. So, that means that Pat’s brother is the inheritor and executor of Pat’s estate. And while previously, Pat’s extended family accepted Angie, their acceptance only goes so far. Angie wants to continue living in the apartment she and Pat made a home in for three decades. But it’s too nice and expensive an apartment for Pat’s family to not want it for themselves.

Legality and shit is boring. It’s all signatures and legalese. All Shall Be Well focuses on the human stories this legality affects. Using close-ups and often having Angie expected to stand a pace behind Pat’s “real” family, we see instance after instance of how 30 years together means so little once one is gone. Pat and Angie cultivated a beautiful, private life for themselves. But they had little relevance to the broader legal and public sphere. Personal vows of commitment are beautiful. But in the world we live in, if you don’t get that shit in writing, the only meaning those vows have is exclusively to the two people sharing them.

I appreciate that All Shall Be Well isn’t so straight forward that it feels like an afterschool special. Especially in trying to get a message across, I’ve seen a lot of movies overdo it to a point of simplicity. Pat’s relatives aren’t pure evil, they’re conflicted. Angie and Pat genuinely did live privileged lives when compared to the rest of the family. And it’s pointed out they Pat and Angie could’ve got married abroad or Pat could’ve made a will. It’s not like they’re stifled by society at every turn. Instead, it’s just that life is messy and that choosing to do or not do something can have major ramifications. And in regards to Pat’s family, as the movie says: even the relationship between a parent and child becomes strained when money comes into it. And Angie’s a touch more distant of a relative than that.

Righteous anger is an emotion. But what about righteous sadness? Is that a thing? Because I think that’s how this movie made me feel. All Shall Be Well is an excellent story that uses a sympathetic individual and private issues to outline a systemic problem. This is a film with a specific agenda that really executes said agenda well. This a quiet, tragic portrait of personal grief. But also a story that is incontrovertibly tied into issues of rights and equality for same-sex couples.

Overall rating: 7.3/10

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