Vague Visages’ I Love You Forever review contains minor spoilers. Cazzie David and Elisa Kalani’s 2024 movie features Ray Nicholson, Sofia Black-D’Elia and Jon Rudnitsky. Check out the VV home page for more film criticism, movie reviews and film essays.

I Love You Forever nimbly moves between comedy and drama; few filmmakers are capable of pulling off such tonal shifts, let alone those making their feature debut. One of the co-writers and co-directors is Cazzie David, a descendant of comedy royalty as the daughter of Seinfeld co-creator Larry David. She collaborates with Elisa Kalani to make a fresh, emotionally charged dissection of millennial growing pains. Billed as a “subversive romantic comedy gone wrong,” I Love You Forever follows a group of twentysomethings navigating the ephemeral nature of modern dating. David herself plays Ally, sporting a laconic sarcasm that makes her lines land with a quiet sting. Her low register, hooded eyes and deadpan cool evoke Krysten Ritter’s distinctive presence. Had I Love You Forever been made in the 1990s, Jon Rudnitsky’s Lucas might have been reduced to the cliché of the sassy Gay Best Friend. The actor brings a welcome male energy that reflects how modern friendship circles are more mixed in gender.

Sofia Black-D’Elia plays Mackenzie, an intelligent law student who is unlucky in relationships. She’s in a current situationship with Jake (Raymond Cham Jr.), whom Ally calls “a human vape pen” — much like the one Jake often reaches over her to grab during the awkward silences that follow their meaningless sex. Mackenzie only wants him to be her boyfriend because she’s chasing all the butterflies that come from being with someone you love — something she’s never truly experienced before. Beneath Mackenzie’s earnestness, however, there’s a loneliness that Black-D’Elia doesn’t modulate enough in her performance. Still, her character’s determination to better her future in both academic and social spheres makes her slow transformation even more hard-hitting.

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Mackenzie meets Finn, a local news journalist with the smarmy air of a Gossip Girl cast member, at a party. He’s attentive and doting, but there’s an unmistakable eeriness that makes the eventual revelation of his abusive behavior feel a bit too telegraphed. This becomes even more pointed when considering that the actor, Ray Nicholson, is the nepo baby of none other than Jack Nicholson — who famously portrayed one of cinema’s most horrifying male abusers in The Shining (1980) — and has that same narrow brow and wolfish smile.

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Romantic comedies aren’t as much of a genre staple as they were in the 1990s and 2000s, which makes it all the more intriguing to see contemporary ones tackle how much dating culture has changed — especially the technological influence on our vernacular and behavioral rhythms. In their 2024 film, David and Kalani address all the unspoken rules about text and FaceTime etiquette, the fears of being socially inept when having to meet someone organically and the strategies for swiping on a dating app. I Love You Forever’s screenplay has a very witty, keen eye on modern generational customs and idiosyncrasies, but the film is just as driven by empathetic, visually melancholy passages of Mackenzie’s silent suffering. 

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Mackenzie is trapped in a toxic cycle where Finn love-bombs her and then spirals into emotional meltdowns and violent threats. He buys her a fancy bracelet and rents out an entire restaurant for their first date. Finn repeatedly tells her, even just a few months into dating, “I love you forever.” To an outsider, this might seem obsessive and intense, but Mackenzie gobbles it up because she is starved for love. I Love You Forever captures the superficiality of modern relationships, such as when Mackenzie creates a TikTok video of Finn bringing her coffee every morning. Today, the line between authenticity and performance is thin, making the intentions of romantic partners questionable, and curating an image of a relationship often takes priority over genuine interpersonal connection. In I Love You Forever, Mackenzie and Finn don’t have any meaningful conversations beyond their shallow, compulsive and repetitive declarations of love. While making these grand gestures, Finn presents himself as Pride and Prejudice’s Mr. Darcy, but there’s a tinge of desperation that feels more insidious than romantic.

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Everything shifts when Mackenzie attends a law school lecture and Finn keeps hounding her on the phone, claiming he’s having a panic attack because he couldn’t reach her, and he just wanted to make sure she was safe and exchange “I love yous.” Nicholson has a natural theatricality that makes his psychological breakdowns seem a little ham-fisted, but individuals with mental illness can certainly behave in such mercurial and manipulative ways. Mackenzie holds her ground in many of their arguments and is clear-headed about the destructive nature of her partner’s behavior, but Finn’s constant threats of suicide loom over her and keep her from pushing back too harshly. He tells her that if she doesn’t respond to his texts immediately, he’ll break up with her. Finn’s insistence that he treats Mackenzie “like a queen” isn’t motivated by real care, but by a demand for reciprocity, evidenced by the statement “You should be treating me like a king.” And in his mind, that means constant, daily sex, zero friends or acquaintances outside of their relationship, and answering his texts at the drop of a hat.

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Midway through I Love You Forever, the filmmakers move on from clever, punchy zingers to wallow in Mackenzie’s Oscar-worthy performance as a devoted girlfriend. Walking a tightrope to prevent Finn from exploding, she becomes exhausted. Mackenzie falls on academic probation and can’t even meet friends for lunch without checking her multiple electronic devices because she’s anxious about missing one of Finn’s texts. Ally and Lucas clearly see this problematic behavior but don’t speak up, which is frustrating but reflective of a hesitation in friend groups to critique someone’s partner.  

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The only thing holding I Love You Forever back is its repetitiveness. The film seemingly features the same fight on repeat, but this could also be seen as a deliberate, subjective technique to fully draw audiences into Mackenzie’s experience. In I Love You Forever, David and Kalani have their fingers firmly on the pulse of the current zeitgeist, injecting a much-needed youthful zest into a well-worn genre with an artful eye and incisive wit.

I Love You Forever released digitally on February 14, 2025.

Caroline Madden (@crolinss) is the author of Springsteen as Soundtrack. She’s also a film critic who has written for Screen Queens, Reverse Shot, IndieWire and more. Caroline is the editor-in-chief of Video Librarian. Thank you for reading film criticism, movie reviews and film reviews at Vague Visages.

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