'All I See Is You' Review: Blake Lively Marriage Drama Is Blind to Its Own Shortcomings

A surfeit of visual noodling and little effectively directed and written drama make up “All I See Is You,” a what-if gimmick posing as a dissection of a marriage where one spouse is blind, yet it’s the other half who’s the needy one.

A kind of anti-Nicholas Sparks movie, in which good intentions unintentionally expose cracks in a union, Marc Forster’s superficially trippy Thailand-set movie — peppered as it is with amorphous waves of shapes and colors meant to evoke the point of view of the sight-impaired — never plays like something that had to be made about the human condition. Think instead a short faux-experimental film unnecessarily stretched to the yawning point.

Blake Lively plays Gina, a woman rendered blind as a child after a car accident that killed her parents. She lives in Bangkok with her insurance-executive husband James (Jason Clarke) in an unassuming apartment, but it’s a good life. There’s the friendly exoticism of a foreign country, a comfortable physical intimacy they hope will one day bring a child into the world, and James’s attentiveness, which feels natural and helpful instead of oppressive.

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But the promise of something better arises when Gina and James make an appointment to see a surgeon (Danny Huston), who reveals that an operation to restore sight in Gina’s right eye has a good chance of working. Buoyed by what could be, they go dancing at a club that night, but the first fissures start to show when James’s insecurities (“We look stupid”) harsh her buzz. Forcefully leading her out, Gina finds herself separated and alone in a crowded rush of revelers, and there’s the teensiest hint in the air that the brief abandonment was deliberate on James’s part.

When the operation proves successful, Gina discovers a textured world of people, places and objects that stoke a desire to assert herself more, and to jazz up her and James’s lives. No longer is their modest pad acceptable to her — she now wants a traditional Thai house in a picturesque village — nor the perceived drabness of her appearance, nor the couple’s unadventurous sex. On a trip to Spain to visit Gina’s sister Carla (Ahna O’Reilly, “Marshall”) and her macho, expressionistic-painter husband Ramon (Miquel Fernández) — a loudly coital couple who practically ooze naughtiness — James is further confronted by a sense of sexual inadequacy. (Being goaded into attending a live sex show doesn’t help.)

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His sense of control ebbing by the minute, uptight James feels increasingly as if he won’t be enough for his less-dependent, awakened wife, and back home, when Gina dyes her hair blonde and dresses provocatively for a work event, James can’t help but openly express his discomfort, further driving a wedge between them.

Eventually things veer into domestic-thriller territory with the emergence of a handsome swim pal friend of Gina’s named Daniel (Wes Chatham, “The Hunger Games: Mockingjay”) and a medical left turn. But that veer arrives with an obviousness that sparks a mental checklist in your head of scenes and moments you know are coming. Predictability doesn’t always indicate lack of suspense — Hitchcock’s whole point in the oft-referenced example is that you know there’s a ticking bomb under the table — but Forster seems hamstrung by the sudden emergence of plot mechanics as a window into emotion, and distinctly uninterested in burrowing into the psychology of Gina’s and James’s changed dynamic as a firm basis from which to ratchet up the creepiness.

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It leaves the movie rushing through its rudimentary melodrama, while Forster sticks to his diet of phantasmagoric visuals (courtesy cinematographer Matthias Koenigswieser, “After the Fall”) and choppily-edited scenes that he believes hold some impressionistic truth about relationships between men and women.

The shame is that interesting actors Lively and Clarke get the short end of the stick by having little more to do than wander around in an underwritten movie. (Forster is credited with the screenplay along with Sean Conway.) The stars are perfectly believable throughout — Lively’s shift from innocent to emboldened is commendable, and Clarke knows how to sell nervous, queasy energy — but servicing a thin scenario, not to mention fighting for screen time with Forster’s kaleidoscopic digressions, squanders the potential for something thornier. The movie’s ambitions are misguided, which makes it all too fuzzy of an experience.

The 17 Tackiest Cannes PR Stunts, From Blake Lively's Sharks to Sacha Baron Cohen's Mankini (Photos)

From a faux terrorist attack to sharks in the French Riviera, promoters often miss the mark with their gaudy Cannes PR stunts.

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Faux “Terror Raid” to Promote Oraxy
Guests at Hotel du Cap Eden-Roc got a surprise visit by men outfitted in militia-themed gear last year, who approached the hotel by boat. It was a publicity stunt for the Paris-based Oraxy, which describes itself as “the world’s first private global marketplace reserved exclusively for UHNWI,” or Ultra High Net Worth Individuals.

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Sacha Baron Cohen Wears Green Mankini
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Sacha Baron Cohen Brings a Camel
In 2012, “The Dictator” actor turned up with two model bodyguards and a camel. He even managed to fall off the camel, which bore a license plate with “Wadiya 1” on it – a reference to the fictional North African Republic of Wadiya, where “The Dictator” was set.

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T.J. Miller Parachutes in to Debut "Emoji Movie" Trailer
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"The Shallows" Brings in Fake Sharks
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Faux Snow for "A Christmas Carol"
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Jerry Seinfeld Flies In to Promote "Bee Movie"
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Angelina Jolie, Will Smith Ride Inflatable Shark
Will Smith, Angelina Jolie and Jack Black rode a 14-foot inflatable shark to promote "Shark Tale" in 2004.

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"Trolls" Wigs
Anna Kendrick and Justin Timberlake promoted "Trolls" in 2016 with an array of women wearing bright-colored outfits and wigs reminiscent of the costumes in the movie. Also, they're all in gowns -- a play on Cannes fashion?

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Gaspar Noe’s Graphic Makeout Posters to Promote “Love”
Gaspar Noe at first shocked -- and then satisfied -- critics with his depiction of sex on film. He was praised for depicting the joyous and fervent act and staying mostly out of the realm of straight-up pornography. Promoting the film, however, was a different story. Producers wallpapered Cannes in posters of a saliva-covered triple kiss and an NSFW image of a penis and a woman's breast after climax.

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Dolph Lundgren, Jean-Claude Van Damme Hold Impromptu Stage Fight
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Naked Bike Rides
Felix van Groeningen, the filmmaker behind “The Misfortunates,” decided to recreate a scene from his film where a dysfunctional family rides bikes in the nude. Just hours before a press conference, the director and his team disrobed and flew down the Croisette in the buff. A staffer on a motorcycle followed with their underwear, in case French police got a gander at them.

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Howard Stern and His "Private Parts"

Radio legend Howard Stern had a 40-foot inflated balloon of himself naked near the beach to promote his 1997 biopic "Private Parts." However, France's then-President Jaques Chirac was visiting Cannes and his security detail considered the balloon too crude to remain up. Though when Chirac left, Stern and his team reinflated it.

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It's a Bird! It's a Plane!

To promote "Superman," Alexander Salkind--who was the film's supervisor--and Ilya, his son, hired prop planes to fly around the Croisette in 1975. In 1976, they got even more planes and in 1977, they hired a whole fleet of planes.

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Arnold Schwarzenegger's Muscle Pose

While promoting his bodybuilding-centered documentary film, "Pumping Iron," Arnold Schwarzenegger posed in a Speedo with a group of fully-clothed women to a beach audience.

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