And Then There Was Eve Movie Review

『Transformation of Love and the Confrontation with Loss and Acceptance Before One’s True Self』

🎥 Movie Overview

🎬 Title: And Then There Was Eve (2017)
🌍 Country: 🇺🇸 United States
🎞️ Genre: Drama / Romance / Queer
🗓️ Production: Independent Film
⏳ Runtime: Approx. 90 minutes
📢 Director: Savannah Bloch
🖋️ Screenplay: Savannah Bloch, Colette Freedman

👩‍💼 Cast: Tania Nolan – Alyssa
Rachel Crowl – Eve / Kevin

🧩 Deep Story Exploration (Spoilers Included)

🌅 A Psychological Drama Disguised as a Mystery Thriller

The film begins with a shocking scene where the successful photographer Alyssa wakes up one morning to find her husband Kevin missing and their home in complete disarray. Seeking answers, she turns to Kevin’s colleague, the charismatic jazz pianist Eve, and gradually falls in love with her.

• Mystery Element: The disappearance of Kevin and the vanishing of all his photos serve as both an intriguing mystery and a symbolic representation of Alyssa’s psychological defense mechanism.
• Shocking Twist (Spoilers): The core revelation of the film is that Eve is, in fact, Alyssa’s husband Kevin, who has transitioned as a transgender woman. On the night Kevin came out to Alyssa, she suffered severe trauma and experienced dissociative amnesia, erasing Kevin’s existence and all memories—especially his face—from her mind.
• Diversion of Focus: By framing the story as a mystery about Kevin’s disappearance, the film shifts its attention to Alyssa’s psychological trauma, exploring the grief and confusion of a cisgender spouse confronting their partner’s transition. This narrative focus has been criticized for centering the cisgender partner’s pain over the transgender character’s experience.

🔄 Loss, Identity, and Reconstructed Love

The film dissects the complexity of relationships through two central themes — loss and identity.

• Kevin as the “Dead Husband”: Alyssa processes Kevin’s transition by treating him as someone who has “died”. With Eve’s help, she joins a grief support group to overcome her sorrow. This metaphorically portrays how a partner’s gender transition can feel like the death of a previous relationship to the spouse. Through this process, Alyssa learns to mourn and release her image of the old Kevin.
• Rediscovery of Love and Self-Acceptance: Alyssa’s growing affection for Eve is not merely an affair—it’s the process of rediscovering Kevin in a new form and falling in love again without realizing it. Her attraction to Eve’s charm and musical talent implies that her love is not bound by gender or appearance but by the essence of Eve as a person. Eve embodies both the true self Kevin had long suppressed and the new partner Alyssa has learned to love.
• Eve’s Pain and Silence: Eve (Kevin) has endured immense courage and suffering to live as her authentic self. Yet, because the film’s focus centers on Alyssa’s trauma, Eve’s isolation, fear, and the agony of being erased from her loved one’s memory receive less attention. Her anguished cry—“You think you’re hurt? I’m completely destroyed! You erased me from your mind!”—expresses her deepest sense of loss and betrayal.

🌈 A Controversial but Important Queer Narrative

• Healing Through Acceptance: When Alyssa fully accepts Eve not as her “former husband” but as her present partner, the psychological defenses—mystery and amnesia—finally collapse. Their relationship is reborn as a new lesbian couple grounded in Eve’s true identity.

And Then There Was Eve presents the story of a transgender spouse through the lens of the cisgender partner’s psychological pain—a perspective that some critics find controversial for potentially marginalizing the transgender experience.

Nevertheless, the film raises essential questions about the definition of love and the complexity of identity. Alyssa’s amnesia, as a dramatic device, also offers the audience a chance to meet Eve without prejudice, emphasizing that love need not be confined by the boundaries of the past. With compelling performances and nuanced psychological tension, the film profoundly explores the process of reconstructing both partnership and selfhood in the face of transformation.

🎯 Personal Rating (Based on Taste)

💕 Love Scene Intensity: ♥
⭐ Rating: ★★★☆