Rating: R | Runtime: 110 minutes
Release Date: March 7th, 2025 (USA)
Studio: Cinema Direct Films
Director(s): Freddie Wong & Matthew Arnold
Writer(s): Freddie Wong & Matthew Arnold

Was he nutted?

There’s an unexplained, anomalous object looming large over the world built by Freddie Wong and Matthew Arnold. A crystalline alien column appears without warning, destroying everything within its wide diameter before “jumping” to another place on Earth to do it all again. Humans treat it like an extinction point because there’s no way to stop it, survive it, or live without the possibility of it decimating the ground you inhabit next. But isn’t that just life?

Wong and Arnold don’t title their film We’re All Gonna Die because it’s a novel expression of fear. The uncertainty of mortality has cemented that sentiment as a common refrain throughout history. Will you live despite it or succumb to its futility? Will you celebrate the time you had with those who left too soon or lament not having enough? Because despite this sci-fi conceit, the column hasn’t actually caused Thalia (Ashly Burch) and Kai’s (Jordan Rodrigues) pain.

That’s what struck me most here. We assume every bad thing befalling the characters on-screen was a direct result of this metaphorical scythe only to discover their grief is born from the same unfortunate tragedies we all endure. Its presence is therefore a catalyst for Thalia and Kai to collide in the present rather than a reminder of their loneliness. Despite all the deaths that occurred due to its “jumps,” one could say its latest tremors are set to save these two specific souls.

You have the sadness of new grief (Kai) and the anger of old (Thalia) providing a harsh (often sarcastically so) mirror for the other to embrace the other’s emotion as a path towards acceptance. So, despite the script often going super silly or generically clichéd, trust that it will also mine deep into the authentic trauma at their respective centers. It’s as much a road trip to recover their loved ones’ surrogates as it is to finally let go. Because absent doesn’t mean erased.

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Ashly Burch and Jordan Rodrigues in WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE.