Common Sense Media Review
By Barbara Shulgasser-Parker
,
based on child development research. How do we rate?
Romance blooms between old friends; language, sex.
Parents Need to Know
Why Age 13+?
Any Positive Content?
Where to Watch
Videos and Photos
You, Always
Parent and Kid Reviews
What's the Story?
In YOU, ALWAYS, Jen (Jessica De Gouw) is a doctor in coastal Australia. Her high school best friend and marine search-and-rescue partner Ethan (Adrian Grenier) is like a brother, and an uncle to her young daughter (Aria Burton). Both Jen and Ethan have long been romantically gun-shy since their respective difficult divorces and have valued their friendship too much to risk a romantic relationship between them. Then Jen suddenly sees Ethan as a possible romantic partner but he misses the signals. So, the timing is perfect when her favorite romance novel writer Patrick (Desmond Chiam) comes to town for research on a new book. They meet cute and he immediately asks her out. Soon they become engaged and she starts packing to move with Patrick to Sydney, which gets Ethan's attention and arouses his jealousy. Will Ethan realize Jen is the one for him?
Is It Any Good?
You, Always is a perfectly pleasant 93 minutes but it doesn't rank in the top tier of romantic comedies by a long shot. The characters are a little too undefined for that. Ethan rescues people in distress, a pretty responsible job. He never fails to pick up Jen's daughter on time. Yet, his home looks like a dorm room after a keg party and Jen thinks of him as flaky and unreliable. That's brought home when she invites him for what she hopes will be romantic dinner and instead he sits home playing video games because he forgot.
She, too, is a package of unlikely contradictions. She's a responsible doctor who's seen it all, yet she's over the top when making plans for showering and dressing just because someone's asked her out on a date. Stranger still is that her decision to leave her practice, find a new job, uproot her daughter, and move to a new city all seems to take place within a matter of days. And Ethan's transformation into a grownup, we are to believe, takes place because he reads a self-help book in one sitting. It must have been some book.
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about the combination of deep friendship and romantic love. Do you think a friendship can make a romantic relationship better? Why or why not?
A man worries that trying to have a romantic relationship with his best friend could jeopardize the friendship. Do you think it's worth risking a great friendship for the possibility of true love?
What do you think the differences might be between love as portrayed in romance novels and actual romance?
Movie Details
- On DVD or streaming : May 1, 2026
- Cast : Adrian Grenier , Jessica De Grouw , Desmond Chiam
- Director : Christine Luby
- Inclusion Information : Female Movie Actor(s) , Asian Movie Actor(s) , Female Movie Writer(s)
- Studio : Netflix
- Genre : Romance
- Topics : Friendship
- Run time : 93 minutes
- MPAA rating :
- Last updated : May 5, 2026
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