And no I don’t mean the throuple that Sam’s orchestra got so excited about. In entertainment journo-speak, is it Samma or Jemma? Very spoilery (if you’re looking for my review, it’s here).
So to Jesse’s surprise it turns out Emma hasn’t simply been treading water in her new low-key life while he’s been away, a realisation that at first leaves him all at sea. As they talk about it at the lighthouse in Maine where they married they both realise the gulf between them is insurmountable.
Okay that’s enough watery metaphors, let’s find out what happens. And eau no, water palaver it is, though they get there in the end — you can’t faucet, after all (sorrynotsorry).
Emma decides the kind of woman she is now is incompatible with what Jesse wanted, and indeed with the woman she used to be. But it’s fine because Jesse realises she has changed, and she is no longer the right woman for him. So no one is left weeping and alone (not for long, anyway).
It’s an unposted letter that Emma wrote to Jesse after three years alone that really explains to him how she feels: why she is letting him go and moving on with her life, and how she is being open to love again. Jesse finds it in her memory box along with newspaper cuttings from his disappearance, and it helps him understand that the life Emma has built for herself after returning to her home town of Acton — a life she was previously so against that she had run away from it to travel the world with Jesse — is actually a choice. She is thriving: returning to Massachusetts, managing her parents’ bookstore, putting family first. It’s a life that would suffocate Jesse (and he thought, Emma) just as much as four years on that island did.
Jesse then knows that he has to leave and continue his travels around the world, while Emma realises she needs to stay where she is, with Sam. Jesse is still grateful to Emma for saving him though; she gave him the strength to get home, and while he no longer has her, he has the freedom to continue to live the life he wants.
Sam too has understood that something needs to change. After a pep talk from his students and colleagues, he finally fights for the woman he loves rather than moping around moaning to his young orchestra. Admittedly he only realises he has to do this after what looks like a full day of moping around moaning to his young orchestra, and all his colleagues, but he gets there in the end.
It’s not entirely straightforward. After he rushes to the bookstore to find Emma, Marie tells him that Emma and Jesse have gone to Maine, possibly not platonically; then when Emma, looking for Sam just as he is looking for her, chases after him in her car she literally crashes into him before they declare they are both “in” for their shared future. But the (movie) path of true love rarely is.
There is then a flash forward. Emma is heavily pregnant at the bookstore while Sam is outside trying to master how to fix a baby seat into a car; her wider family are around her. A letter arrives from Jesse, who has fallen in love with another woman on his travels. He finally understands that he had to move forward to live again, as Emma had already done.
One True Loves was released in US cinemas on 7 April 2023 and on digital on 14 April.
Leave a Reply