QUEERTY - November 21, 2025 "WATCH: Should you tell your best friend you’re in love with them—on their wedding day?" by Cameron Scheetz

In the new romantic comedy Everything & The Universe, the impossibly magnetic Sam (The Resident‘s Chelsea Gilligan) is preparing for her wedding to handsome professor Brian (Black Sails‘ Luke Roberts) in the charming college town of Durham, NC.

But as wonderful as that all sounds, this isn’t their love story.

Instead, Everything & The Universe is an indie that sets out to explore the complexities, the messiness, and the excitement of a true love story, one that isn’t quite so picture-perfect.

It all begins at the airport, where the perennially skeptical, sexually fluid scientist Jane (Kim’s Convenience‘s Nicolette Pearse) is getting ready to fly home for the wedding of her longtime best friend Sam, who she’s not-so-secretly been harboring a crush on for years.

There, she bumps into the much more lax, carefree Henry (Guiding Light‘s E.J. Bonilla), who she immediately can’t stand. But, as luck would have it, Henry is one of Sam’s exes who she’s still on good terms with, and he’s en route to the wedding, too. Yippee…

Through a series of misfortunes—including some truly turbulent turbulence—the odd couple find themselves forced together for much of their trip to Durham. And though they don’t see eye-to-eye on much, they realize the have at least one thing in common: They’re both in love with Sam.

Was it fate that brought them together? Henry thinks so as he devises a plan for them to stop the wedding before they both lose her to someone else. However, Jane realizes that trying to do so might mean she’d finally have to share her real feelings for Sam outside, which could fully derail their friendship for good.

As Jane and Henry’s journey brings the pair closer together than either expected, they find themselves looking for answers, a sign for the universe that they’re headed in the right direction. But maybe what they find on the way there is what they were really looking for all along.

Also starring Spencer Claus (Pining) and Carlease Burke (Child’s Play), Everything & The Universe is the feature debut from filmmaker Sarah Scarlett Downing who previously helmed the indie web series Cleansed, which was nominated for the grand jury award at SXSW in 2018.

“We are excited to share our film, Everything & The Universe, with audiences,” Downing shares in a statement to Queerty. “Our film is both relatable and unique, not only because it tells the story of a man and a woman who are both in love with the same person, but because it is an honest look at how we make friendship, sex and love, which are already messy, even messier often by choice.”

After a festival run, the rom-com will be digitally available on most major VOD platforms on December 4 courtesy of the new indie film label Persimmon. Downing adds that she’s “thankful to Persimmon for having faith in our all-female writer/director/producer team” and is “thrilled” to be partnering with them for the film’s release.