The only reason I know the 2025 movie EVERYTHING & THE UNIVERSE (2025) exists is because our local newsmagazine, The Indy, wrote an article about it last month. It’s an indie film shot in Durham, NC but even the businesses that appear in the film didn’t know it’s now streaming.
Before you go any further, be warned, spoilers follow.
Naturally I caught it once I found the time. The Durham skyline is visible in several shots and I know at least one location, the Arcana Bar, though not well enough to recognize it. The film has the “quirky indie” vibe down (though unlike the Indy, I wouldn’t call it a rom-com). Despite being enthused to see it, Everything & the Universe didn’t work for me.
The plot: Henry (E.J. Bonilla) and Jane (Nicolette Pearse) meet as they get on a plane to Durham. When it makes an unplanned emergency landing, Jane can’t find transportation and accepts a ride with Henry. It turns out they’re both headed to a wedding — Sam (Chelsea Gilligan) is Henry’s ex, Jane’s BFF and also Jane’s secret love fantasy (Jane’s lesbian), but Sam’s marrying Brian (Luke Roberts). Henry thinks he and Jane have been brought together to derail the wedding and leave Sam up for grabs. Hilarity, character interactions, personal crises and the wedding ensue.
The movie started to go wrong in the opening scene, in which Henry is getting manic about bringing a carved log with him on his flight (it’s a memento of a sexy afternoon with Sam). He proceeds to disregard boundaries, pushing for Jane’s last name when she doesn’t want to tell him, talking to her when she’s on headphones, asking why she can’t smile more. It’s obviously a conscious choice by writer/director Sarah Scarlett Downing and it’s consistent with Henry’s personality throughout the movie — a pushy jerk who keeps heading for what he wants regardless of what anyone else wants or needs.
Possibly Downing thought this was realistic (it is); possibly she was trying to create, as the old phrase goes, a character you love to hate. Trouble is, I didn’t love to hate him, I just hate him. As I’ve said before, sexist jerks do not make good protagonists. When he offers her a ride — I get it, she’s desperate, but I can’t help thinking a guy like Henry would make her choose the bear. Instead they bond, becoming squabbling best friends.
The other problem is that the indie drama aspect — everyone getting together and interacting, like John Sayles’ Return of the Secaucus Seven, working out personal problems (or not) — fits oddly with the nominal plots of a)Jane wanting this to be a friends-to-lovers romance and b)Jane and Henry trying to break up the wedding. Brian turns out to be a jerk … or is that just jerky behavior as most of us engage in? Sam reciprocates Jane’s feelings after all … or does she? There’s an odd moment at the wedding where one of Brian’s male students declares his love for the professor; it comes so out of the blue, I assume it’s some trick by Henry. Then again maybe it wasn’t. Random moments work fine in a character study. Not so well in a rom-com plot.
In the end, the cast and crew execute the film well … but it still doesn’t work. “There is no use running from the moon — even when you can’t see her, she’s there.”
