Film

SoulMate

SoulMate tracks a lifelong female friendship across two decades, told through flashbacks that spiral from childhood into adulthood. A boy arrives and fractures everything. It's intimate and deliberately paced, built on the chemistry between its leads and the quiet devastation of watching love—romantic or otherwise—remake you. For anyone who's been broken by someone they couldn't let go of.

TMDb rating3.6

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you are drawn to slow-burning, bittersweet love stories that trace how two people drift and return across many years, with the emotional weight carried by small moments rather than big set pieces.

Skip it if you want a brisk romance with a clear arc and tidy resolution; this one loops back through time and lingers in melancholy, so the pacing can feel heavy and deliberate.

What it asks of you: Settle in for a nearly two-hour film that moves through its timeline in fragments, asking patience and attention as it shifts between youth and adulthood.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

Mulholland Drive2001

Non-linear storytelling that circles back to reframe everything you thought you understood. Dense with longing and the mysterious ways people hurt each other. A masterclass in emotional architecture.

But Deliberately cryptic and slow. The puzzle matters less than the feeling, which frustrates people who want answers handed over cleanly.

Mulholland Drive poster

Chungking Express1994

Two intertwined love stories, both about people missing someone. Shot with such visual invention and melancholy that it feels like watching someone's daydream. Wong Kar-wai at his most romantic and disorienting.

But Thin on plot. The mood is everything; if that register doesn't move you, there's nothing underneath to fall back on.

Chungking Express poster

Call Me by Your Name2017

Tenderness and attraction told through glances and small gestures. Summer romance that aches because you know it's temporary. About how one person can reshape your entire understanding of yourself.

But Very slow. Some find it precious; others find it tedious. The pacing won't speed up for you.

Call Me by Your Name poster

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from SoulMate

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Moonlight2016

Both films track how crucial people remake us, told through fragments and flashback. Both trust their audience to feel the architecture rather than explain it.

Three chapters of one man's life, each centred on a person he loves and cannot keep. Like SoulMate, it's about how other people shape us, but it fractures identity itself—Black, queer, poor, fragmented. Barry Jenkins uses colour and music instead of dialogue to say what matters.

But Sparse and poetic to the point of abstraction. If you need plot, this will feel like watching someone else's memory.

Moonlight poster
More like this (8)

Portrait of a Lady on Fire2019

Two women across a few weeks, watching each other watching. Deliberately constructed intimacy—the way a painting builds. About desire, connection, and the impossibility of holding onto things.

But Minimal dialogue and plot. It's almost meditative, which means you have to meet it halfway.

Portrait of a Lady on Fire poster

The Farewell2019

A family secret that ripples across a generation. Lulu Wang captures grief and love without sentimentality, the way things actually feel when loss is this close and this complicated.

But It's quieter than you expect from a narrative like this. Less catharsis, more sitting with it.

The Farewell poster

A Separation2011

Two people who loved each other can no longer stay together. Asghar Farhadi builds unbearable tension from conversations and small decisions. About how love and anger are never far apart.

But It's taxing to watch. No one gets what they want, and neither will you, exactly.

A Separation poster

Burning2018

A slow-burn mystery about three people—two writers, one mystery man—that becomes about desire, class, and what we're willing to ignore about the people we love. Hypnotic and cruel.

But Two hours forty minutes of tension that doesn't resolve neatly. Patience is non-negotiable.

Burning poster

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind2004

What if you could erase the person you loved most? A film about memory and loss that's also a love story. The structure itself is the emotional argument.

But It's clever, which some people find get in the way of feeling. The concept can overshadow the heartbreak.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind poster

In the Mood for Love2000

Two neighbours suspect their spouses are having an affair. They spend the film not quite admitting what they mean to each other. Wong Kar-wai again, but if you haven't seen this, start here.

But All suggestion and longing, no release. If you need resolution, this will destroy you.

In the Mood for Love poster

Afterimages2014

Both films centre female creativity and connection under pressure. Both refuse easy sentiment about relationships—love here is entanglement, not escape.

Andrzej Wajda's final film. A Polish avant-garde painter in Soviet-controlled Warsaw, trying to exist in a system that won't let him. It's about artists, rebellion, and the people we choose. Visually stunning, morally fierce.

But Historical and political in ways that require some context. Wajda assumes you're paying attention. Not a comfortable watch.

Afterimages poster

Happy as Lazzaro2018

Like SoulMate, it's about how deeply one person can mark another. But where SoulMate is elegiac, this is mythic—it asks whether being broken by love makes you less human or more.

A young man in an isolated Italian sharecropping village is so open and trusting that he breaks everyone around him. Then the film breaks time itself. Paolo Sorrentino's most tender, strangest work. About how goodness undoes people.

But The tonal shift halfway through alienates some viewers. It's also surreal in ways that resist paraphrase.

Happy as Lazzaro poster

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Recommended by

Norwegian Wood, The Duel