Annie Murphy leads All That She Wants as Emma, a professional dancer in her early thirties whose life tilts after a breakup and a surprise connection with Luke. The role was written specifically for Murphy, giving her a romantic-comedy lead built around more than Alexis Rose.
Emma, Luke and the dorm room turn
The film pairs Murphy with Cooper Raiff as Luke, a grad student who is about a decade younger than Emma. Their first meeting comes at a nightclub after she splits with Spencer, and the relationship turns physical in Luke’s university dorm room before Emma realizes she once babysat him when he was four year-old and called him “Lil Lukey.”
That sequence gives the movie its commercial hook: a straight age-gap setup, then a hard pivot into memory, power imbalance and embarrassment. The script comes from David West Read, who wrote it specifically for Murphy, so the role is designed around her timing rather than asking her to fit a preexisting template.
1992, May and December
All That She Wants takes its title from the 1992 Ace of Base hit, and the film moves over a couple of years, jumping from May to December. That structure lets Emma’s choices land in stages instead of collapsing into a single meet-cute, which is useful for a story built on hesitation, reassessment and the small humiliations that come with getting older while everyone around you keeps moving.
Emma is already rattled before Luke appears. Her sister Macy’s pregnancy announcement leaves her feeling her age, and Spencer is described as pompous and non-committal, so the film does not sell the romance as an easy escape hatch. It makes the obstacle internal as much as romantic, which is a cleaner setup than a simple forbidden-love gimmick.
Andrew Rhymer and Scarlett Bermingham
Andrew Rhymer and Scarlett Bermingham co-direct the film, and Bermingham is making her helming debut. They previously worked together on the 2019 wedding rom-com Plus One, so the team arrives with at least one prior playbook for relationships that look tidy on the outside and get messier once the characters start making bad decisions.
Christine Baranski plays Emma’s mother, Zosia Mamet plays Macy and Finn Wittrock plays Spencer, keeping the cast anchored around the family and breakup pressure that drives Emma into Luke’s orbit. Murphy’s shift here is the real business story: after Schitt's Creek and Alexis Rose, she gets a lead part that asks her to carry the movie’s emotional turn instead of just decorating it.
The movie’s sharpest unresolved piece is how far it pushes the former-babysitter reveal after Emma gets over it quickly. That is the story’s pressure point, and it is the part that will decide whether All That She Wants plays like a one-joke premise or a believable rom-com about a woman trying to decide what she actually wants for herself.
