![‘One Another’ Review: This Documentary About Connection Is Oddly Alienating [SXSW]](https://cdn.theplaylist.net/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/15102228/OneAnother_16x9_1770095878106001IoKO.jpg "‘One Another’ Review: This Documentary About Connection Is Oddly Alienating [SXSW]")
At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, lockdowns trapped the chattering class indoors, political strife reached a fever pitch, and an increasing dependence on social media drove people further and further into silos. For her first feature documentary, “One Another,” Amber Love wanted to explore the nature of relationships in the wake of that massive rupture. The result is a beautifully edited, lyrical ode to the film’s three subjects—but it fails its mission, getting lost in narrative ambiguity and two of the characters’ youthful solipsism, ultimately appealing to the head more than the heart.
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The film focuses on two of Love’s friends, Giorgia and Joe, and her mother, Lorri, as they navigate changes within their closest friendships and their lives. Lorri is settling into life as an empty-nester and looking for pals through Facebook groups, Giorgia is reconnecting with herself after being diagnosed with bipolar, and Joe is moving from Boston to San Francisco. As Love stays close to her subjects, we slowly learn more about their uncertain friendships, though never enough to really satisfy—especially when it comes to Joe and Giorgia.
From the film, it seems Love is quite close to all three of her subjects. This is a blessing and a curse. Such unfettered access is good for the documentary—offering a treasure trove of childhood ephemera and ample interview time—but it also means that Love pulls her punches, obscuring messy narratives when she could be asking hard-hitting questions. Giorgia fractured one of her longest and closest friendships with one text message during a manic episode, and claims that she did so because she felt “unsafe.” Joe, who is single, is growing apart from his best friend because she’s married. “One Another” does little to interrogate this flimsy reasoning—instead, it marinates in it. Joe leads a book club where he talks about the “heteronormative pathway” that leads people to privilege partnerships over friendships. (He and his friend are both queer.) Giorgia talks vaguely about childhood abuse and the differences between her upbringing and her friend’s.
It’s brave of these people to open their personal lives up to public scrutiny, for sure, but it’s hard not to feel bad for the friends on the other ends of these stories, who are by far the most powerless figures in this film. Joe’s friend, who helps him move across the country, is featured heavily in the first half, then mysteriously disappears. Because Giorgia’s personal archive is missing footage of her ex-friend, Loves cast two actors to play Giorgia and her friend, then stages a home movie. Joe and Giorgia might come off better if Lorri’s portion of the film were similarly one-sided, but it’s not. Lisa gets ample screen time, and she’s the one who ultimately gives a post-mortem on her fallout with Lorri (though, again, it’s frustratingly vague).
Love, who also edited and shot “One Another,” is undeniably capable of putting together a beautiful film. The shots cultivate a sense of intimacy even if the content doesn’t, and she expertly lines the narrative with archival material from each subject. Cohesive storytelling occasionally falls prey to this impulse too, though—perhaps most egregiously in the aforementioned staged home movie. It would be one thing if Love tapped two tweens, styled them to look like they were in the 2000s, and shot them doing something mundane, but Fake Giorgia and Fake Giorgia’s Friend are uncannily made up and shot lazing around in bed, twirling each other’s hair. It looks less like a fake home movie and more like a glittery fantasy.
For a film that seeks to emphasize connection in an unprecedented era of human loneliness, “One Another” is oddly alienating. Pain, loneliness, and love are universal emotions—one doesn’t need a liberal arts degree to understand them—yet it’s hard to come away from this documentary without feeling like you’ve just exited an undergrad psychology seminar. (It’s notable that Lorri, this documentary’s oldest subject and the only one admittedly not in therapy, is the one who feels the most approachable.) Enjoy it if you love a simple, aesthetically pleasing nonfiction film; avoid it if you’re allergic to people injecting phrases like “insecurely attached” into everyday conversation. [C-]
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