{"id":346142,"date":"2026-09-14T09:42:13","date_gmt":"2026-09-14T09:42:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/346142\/"},"modified":"2026-09-14T09:42:13","modified_gmt":"2026-09-14T09:42:13","slug":"all-that-she-wants-review-welcome-annie-murphy-to-rom-com-queen-club","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/346142\/","title":{"rendered":"All That She Wants Review: Welcome Annie Murphy to Rom-Com Queen Club"},"content":{"rendered":"

What does Emma want? As is often the case in both real life and the movies, this modern millennial lady ponders this very question all the time. It\u2019s hard to know the answer, because there\u2019s not just one. Does she want a partner, marriage, monogamy<\/a>? Does she want to keep dancing, which has long been her career and also doesn\u2019t seem to be going anywhere? Does she want to tell her overbearing mother off, once and for all? Does she want to just live at her little sister\u2019s comfy house? <\/p>\n

Does she \u2014\u00a0and this is the big one \u2014\u00a0want a baby?<\/p>\n

All those queries (and more!) are offered up early in Scarlett Bermingham and Andrew Rhymer\u2019s charming romantic comedy \u201cAll That She Wants<\/a>\u201d (yes, Ace of Base fans, this one is for you). Emma (a delightful Annie Murphy<\/a>, making a strong play for bonafide Rom-Com Queen status) isn\u2019t so much thriving as she is surviving. We first meet her during a horrifying and deeply funny commercial shoot, in which she\u2019s made to feel very old indeed as she\u2019s also forced to dance around with a giant maxi pad. Such demeaning gigs would force anyone into a life crisis.<\/p>\n

\"Margaret<\/a> \"'Lanterns'<\/a> <\/p>\n

Things aren\u2019t much better elsewhere, though. Her little sister (Zosia Mamet, a wonderful foil for Murphy) is about to have a baby, proving just how together her own life is (her comfy house and winningly awkward husband complete the tableau). Her long-term boyfriend (Finn Wittrock, going full himbo) can\u2019t commit to anything beyond a flatscreen TV. Her parents (Christine Baranski and Bill Irwin) love her but can barely hide their obvious worries that she\u2019s bottomed out before even hitting 40. The dancing gigs are bad. The boyfriend sucks. Nothing is working. And she can\u2019t hide the truth: she wants a baby. <\/p>\n

Hell, Emma has always wanted a baby, as we\u2019re soon treated to flashback footage of a plucky young Emma yapping about her sterling babysitting service and her favorite charge, young \u201cLukie.\u201d But with everything else in her life in total disarray, how can that possibly work? Such is the central conflict of \u201cAll That She Wants,\u201d which is broadly about the perennial problems around \u201chaving it all,\u201d with a generous dash of inter-generational conflict. Written by \u201cSchitt\u2019s Creek\u201d writer and producer David West Read, it\u2019s also quite funny, often silly, and amusingly astute about the wacky ways people move through the world.<\/p>\n

Read obviously knows how to write for Murphy, who does the frazzled rom-com queen thing with both real style and actual believability. We already know and love Emma by the time her potential Prince Charming arrives on the scene, a winsome Gen-Z grad student played by filmmaker and actor Cooper Raiff<\/a>. The two meet cute at a deeply awful Toronto nightclub; Emma is trying to feel young and free, while Raiff\u2019s character, an old soul in a twenty-something body, is taken by the somewhat older woman who is much more fun than his drunk buddies.<\/p>\n

Generationally, they might be far apart. Deep down? Not so much, but that\u2019s something that will take Emma in particular some time to discover. (The film<\/a> unfolds over a period of years, sliding back and forth in time, but never in a way that feels confusing or gimmicky.)<\/p>\n

Perhaps you\u2019re wondering why we\u2019ve yet to refer to Raiff\u2019s character by his name. When Emma and the cute young guy meet up (and then head back home\u2026 to his dorm), she\u2019s willing to overlook their age difference for a night of fun. But when she suddenly realizes who he actually is, well, OK, her shock is understandable. See if you catch it: Raiff\u2019s character is named Luke. He\u2019s about ten years younger than Emma. He\u2019s very cute. Did you get it?<\/p>\n

He\u2019s Lukie. As in, pre-teen Emma\u2019s favorite babysitting charge. Oops.<\/p>\n

For as fraught as that might sound, \u201cAll That She Wants\u201d is far less invested in that particular complication. Sure, it makes for some awkward sequences as Emma and Luke fumble their way through their ever-evolving relationship, and it\u2019s a catchy thing to toss into a logline, but the real issue here is, dun dun, what Emma wants and the things standing in her way. Standing in, yes, Luke\u2019s way.<\/p>\n

Murphy and Raiff make for a sweet and sexy couple, and we miss them when they\u2019re not together. And they\u2019re not together a lot, as Emma attempts to navigate multiple issues as the film unfolds, including the pressing matters around her career, her family life, and her biological clock. Murphy is engaging enough to keep things clipping right along (and Emma is a heroine very easy to root for), but things are at their very best when Emma and Luke are giving into their big feelings. Luke, it seems, feels that way too, enough that he agrees (quite quickly!) to an eventual proposal from Emma: could he father her baby? Just, like, a donation situation! No real feeling! No actual involvement! <\/p>\n

Of course, we know where this is going, the same place any good rom-com goes when you get such a sweet pair of crazy kids together. But Bermingham, Ryhmer, West, and Murphy\u2019s investment in Emma\u2019s actual growth is quite clear here, a nice change from similar rom-coms. Just because we know where she\u2019s going doesn\u2019t mean the journey there isn\u2019t satisfying on its own. Shot in and around Toronto, the film feels warm and lived-in, populated by kooky characters that could be in our own families, and lit with a genuine good spirit. Even better? It announces a new rom-com queen when we really, really needed (and wanted!) one. <\/p>\n

Grade: B<\/p>\n

\u201cAll That She Wants\u201d premiered at the 2026 Toronto International Film Festival. It is currently seeking U.S. distribution.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"What does Emma want? As is often the case in both real life and the movies, this modern…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":346143,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[129593,129594,3056,749,9,24,63,122,124,123,1108,124284],"class_list":["post-346142","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-all-that-she-wants","tag-annie-murphy","tag-festivals","tag-film","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news","tag-reviews","tag-tiff"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346142","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=346142"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346142\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/346143"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=346142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=346142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=346142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}