The latest romance to grace the big screen is All My Life, an earnest story about a young couple who is faced with tragedy following a surprise liver cancer diagnosis. The movie, directed by Marc Meyers and starring Happy Death Day’s Jessica Rothe and Crazy Rich Asians’ Harry Shum Jr, is inspired by the actual story of a Canadian couple who rushed to put together the wedding with the help of friends following some startling news.
All My Life is the kind of movie that makes one pause and look a little lovingly at one's own life and those they care about. When CinemaBlend spoke to Harry Shum Jr during an exclusive interview, the Glee actor talked about how the movie changed his own perspective on things. In his words:
There’s so much that I learned from this film. Being an actor you think ‘how do I infuse parts of me into this.’ [For All My Life] I felt like ‘Well, how much can I take away from this into my own personal life with these characters?’ And that’s exactly what happened, especially now during this year with how everyone’s getting hit in certain ways emotionally, mentally and physically. It’s more important than ever to start thinking about how you deal with things, the outlook and grab as much hope and hold on to it.
In a poignant message, Harry Shum Jr connected the film to the current state of things in 2020, which has many living one day at a time as the COVID-19 pandemic rages on across the world. This even includes studios finding new ways to adapt to the circumstances. In All My Life, the real couple was faced with some tough truths in their mid-20s but, as the movie shows, they still held on to what was important and made the most of the situation. Shum continued with:
Hope might just be the person that’s next to you, the friends that may seem far away that you can still connect with and just making small little moments that can amount to bigger ones. Chipping away at things that have maybe been difficult to talk about and just getting to that place where a lot more love can fill the space. That’s what I’ve learned from Sol and the positivity that he gave off, and also Jen just being a rock and being someone who championed him as long as possible.
All My Life is definitely a relevant film for the moment, considering sickness is more prevalent in the public sphere than usual. In terms of liver cancer, it’s the fifth most common cancer in men and ninth for women. The liver is the largest organ in the body and, once cancer spreads from its isolated space to nearby organs and then to distant organs and tissues, the survival rate drops significantly from 33% to 2%, per the American Cancer Society.
The Universal film has been met with overall mixed to positive reviews since its release. CinemaBlend gave the film a three out of five in our review. All My Life is a rare theatrical release as part of Universal’s deal with AMC which shrunk the theater exclusivity window to 17 days instead of 90. If you choose not to see All My Life in theaters or they are not open in your area, the movie will be available on demand in a couple weeks. You can get a head start on next year’s exciting movies with CinemaBlend’s 2021 release schedule.
