Review: Only You (dir. Harry Wootliff)

Only You is a BAFTA nominated film by the debut director Harry Wootliff. Fair to its name, it’s a romantic drama film which stars Laia Costa as Elena and Josh O’Connor as Jake, a couple who meet each other on New Year’s night accidentally and through the course of the film learn about the sustenance of a relationship.

img courtesy: Tumblr

Hookups, casual relationships, fast relationships form the cornerstone of our contemporary society where immediacy is sought for in every aspect of life. However, Wootliff’s slow burn narrative takes away exactly that aspect from its viewers. Through Elena and Josh, we are reminded of our own high-paced lives where impatience runs high since everything is available to us with a mere touch of the finger. 

Elena and Jake who have recently gotten together try to catch up to the life of their 30 something friends by conceiving. With an absence of family in a traditional sense, they are eager to expand their own. However, their desires remain unfulfilled due to certain complications. In the film, Elena mentions to Jake how he has a concept of a ‘perfect’ way of things happening but in real life, things rarely go as planned. Relatively, the narrative focuses upon the building of a relationship and how it is not always rainbows and daisies. Sometimes things go wrong and we lose things. But mostly, we have things right in front of us, but we are too caught up in our own fantasies to appreciate it. Through fights, failure and relentless trials, the narrative attempts to bring the truth and endurance of relationships to light.

img courtesy: tumblr

The screenplay is coherent the narrative of the film and carefully focuses upon the little emotional details of life. It starts off on a faster pace, mirroring the relationship between Elena and Jake and slows down to accentuate the rougher side of life. Wootliff brings out the intellectual and real side of love stories with an age gap, where compromises and understanding plays a huge role. The camerawork is often intimate; focusing upon the emotional upheavals of the characters and attempting to escalate identification within the viewers. The cinematography includes some gorgeous shots of the urban and countryside Glasgow life, which brings about the hybridity of a contemporary existence. The film is intimate, emotional and everything apart from immediate.