OUTFEST LA 2022: A Different Rom-Com in ‘All Kinds of Love’

All Kinds of Love is a romantic comedy written and directed by David Lewis about a couple, Max (Matthew Montgomery) and Josh (Steve Callahan), who get divorced just as the Supreme Court rules on marriage equality. Only they have a rather hard time separating. Yet, Max finds himself newly infatuated with the person who moved into his old apartment; Conrad (Cody Duke), and Josh just can’t stop having sex with other men. Meanwhile, Max’s parents are having trouble in their long-term throuple with their partner Drew (Mark Nordike).

All Kinds of Love is aptly named. There are no conventional love stories here, and not because it centers on a gay relationship. Max and Conrad are some 15 years apart in age, for starters. Which absolutely happens all the time in straight romances, typically with older men playing younger men and younger women playing older women to pretend they’re close in age. But here, their age difference is part of the point. I appreciate the care the film takes to explore this dynamic, although it’s often done through terribly awkward dialogue instead of real conversations. But nonetheless, it respects the reality that perfectly healthy relationships can exist between people of different ages.

So many depictions of gay men and relationships in popular culture still include partying, promiscuity, and flamboyance. It’s a frustrating trope that simply doesn’t reflect the vast realities of queer lives. These two characters are anything but those descriptors. Sex is not instinctual. They talk about their sexual insecurities and work through them out loud, without a moment’s worth of judgment or shame. For Conrad especially, it was great to see somebody who has been out for a long time but is still vastly inexperienced and not enthused by the typical tropes of gays on-screen. It’s a different perspective I’m not used to seeing outside of coming out stories, which this is decidedly not.

Meanwhile, Max’s parents’ relationship also takes a pretty significant place in the runtime. The dynamic of their three-way relationship is unlike most anything you’ll see elsewhere, as they repeatedly discuss some of the tensions, joys, and worries unique to their relationship, like jealousy over other potential partners and Drew’s desire to feel like an equal part of the family. The characters themselves are kind of flat, often using their circumstance for laughs and relying on their being “hippies” as a heuristic for personality. But even still, I’m glad they’re a major part of the story because they may actually be more interesting than the central relationship during many parts of the movie. The movie gives some attention to Josh and to Conrad’s best friend and roommate Trey (Marval A. Rex) too, but not with enough depth to really derive much from it.

All Kinds of Love, unfortunately, does suffer from some relatively weak dialogue at times and stiff acting at others. There are far too many times that Conrad says some kind of weird slang to make him seem like a Gen Zer compared to Max’s being a geriatric Millenial. But mid-twenties doesn’t qualify as young enough where that kind of awkward dialogue feels remotely realistic, especially given he’s a nerd, not a bro, and I’ve just never met somebody my age who unironically says the things he says. Montgomery occasionally has some rather flat line deliveries as well. But neither of these hang-ups are especially egregious—certainly not enough to take me out of the movie as a whole. And they’re balanced by some really ernest moments with strong dialogue and strong acting from both parties.

All Kinds of Love really does live up to its name, depicting love in ways rarely seen in romantic comedies, and not just because the leads are both men. Through some occasionally awkward writing and acting, the movie feels unique and affirming of different ways that healthy and loving relationships can look, despite what we typically see on-screen.

All Kinds of Love screened as part of the Outfest LA Film Festival 2022.