Movie Review: 'You, Me and Her' is a Sharp Exploration of Marital Problems

You, Me, and Her

Directed by Dan Levy Degerman

Written by Selina Ringel

Starring Selina Ringel, Graham Sibley, Sydney Park

Release Date February 14th, 2025

Published February 16th, 2025

You, Me and Her stars Selina Ringel and Ritesh Rajan as a married couple, Mags and Ash. Mags is the breadwinner, working a high powered job for her demanding father. Ash meanwhile is a stay at home dad and budding marijuana entrepreneur. The couple is struggling with Mags having to carry most of the load while Ash plays video games and shirks what few responsibilities he has. He’s a good dad but for Mags, he’s often like having another kid to raise as he is often hiding from his long term, unsuccessful attempts to get his business off the ground.

After a series of scenes demonstrate the various ways that Mags and Ash aren’t communicating and the ways their marriage is suffering, Ash hatches a plan. Ash has booked them a vacation at a Mexican resort where Mags’ parents had taken her as a child. It’s a costly trip and Mags is quite curious how Ash is able to afford it, but she really needs to get away for a bit, so she tries her best to go with the flow. Once in Mexico, their problems communicating follow them with Ash distracted by trying to find weed to buy and Mags growing further frustrated by his inattention to her.

The story of You, Me and Her truly kicks in when Mags joins a yoga class on the beach and meets Angela, a statuesque beauty with an easygoing sensuality and soft touch. Though Mags has not found herself attracted to women before, she cannot help but fantasize about Angela. So good are her fantasies that it actually helps her marriage. Mags and Ash begin having mind blowing sex and Ash doesn’t seem to mind that his wife’s excitement was inspired by someone other than him. Ash, in fact, supports Mags in exploring her feelings and the two begin to communicate better, even as it’s mostly Ash pushing Mags to invite Angela for a threesome. Ash is unaware that Angela only has eyes for Mags.

You, Me and Her sounds a bit pornographic but I assure you the film is much more tame than the premise indicates. The film is sexy, and sex positive, but there is little to no nudity and the sex is hot but also grounded dramatically in the story of Mags and Ash and Mags’ growing awareness of her sexuality and her desires. Mag’s sexual awakening comes with a growing awareness that it’s okay for her to seek pleasure for herself. The film establishes early on that Mags tends to equate her life to serving the needs of her family.

Whether she is tending to Ash’s immature approach to their home life or acquiescing to her domineering father’s idea of what is right and wrong, Mags is portrayed as self negating, taking the path of least resistance. Through exploring her sexuality and her relationship with Angela, a fantasy figure along the lines of a classic Manic Pixie Dream Girl, Mags learns that seeking pleasure for herself, demanding to have her desires validated, is a more complete and satisfying way of life.

Rather than treating sex as a mere kink to be exploited for titillation, director Dan Levy Dagerman uses the joy and freedom of good sex as a means to explore the flaws of a marriage where one partner carries more of the emotional and physical labor and how this imbalance is an unbearable state. If one person is doing most of the work, emotionally and physically, resentment will build and grow and consume that relationship. The film explores this idea and how Mags, via seeking sexual pleasure for herself, realizes that there is nothing wrong with asserting herself and going after what she desires.

For Ash, the journey of You, Me and Her is not about being emasculated or 'cucked.' Rather, it’s about a revelation that he has played a role in taking away his wife’s pleasure. He’s been an obstacle to Mags finding satisfaction and if he wants to stay married he needs to play a more active role in their relationship or he may lose her to someone like Angela who, for a short time, is the ideal partner, someone eager to be there for Mags, cares about her pleasure, and actively seeks equality of emotional labor in their brief relationship. Naturally, Ash feels threatened and his insecurities do come to the fore, but through seeing his wife happy for the first time in a long time, he comes to recognize that he can do better and will need to if he wishes to stay married.

Relationships of any kind cannot be sustained when one side of the relationship is asked to perform a majority of the emotional and or physical labor. Sex is a great way to explore that imbalance. If one partner is fully satisfied and the other is not, it’s a strong indication that the relationship isn’t working. It indicates a lack of communication, selfishness, and a failure to treat the relationship as a partnership of equals. If you only pursue your own orgasm at the expense of your partner, you’re a bad partner. This extends beyond the bedroom into every other aspect of your relationship, a selfish lover is probably selfish in other aspects of life and that’s the death of a relationship. You, Me and Her does a wonderful job of exploring this idea.

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