Normally, I would critique I Wish You All the Best for its cartoonishly villainous antagonists. In 2025, though, it seems like half of America is ready to make a heel turn when it comes to vulnerable queer youth.
Writer-director Tommy Dorfman’s movie, based on the 2019 young adult novel by Mason Deaver, opens with teenage Ben (Corey Fogelmanis) being kicked out of their parents’ house after coming out as non-binary. Ben is taken in by their adult sister, Hannah (Alexandra Daddario), who was previously expelled for violating their parents’ fundamentalist precepts.
It’s a dramatic situation, but Ben so swiftly arrives at a place of apparent safety — their first school friend, Nathan (Miles Gutierrez-Riley), even turns into a love interest — that I Wish You All the Best emerges as a gentle reflection on identity and healing. Aside from Ben’s self-centered parents (Amy Landecker, Judson Mills), everyone in Ben’s life is an ally, even if they occasionally stumble with their sentiments.
As a coming-of-age story rooted in realism and empathy, I Wish You All the Best evokes Judy Blume. However, the movie lacks the memorable characterizations that make Bloom’s work so indelible. Only Ben gets any real complexity: Nathan is a patient empath, Hannah is a concerned sister, school friends are fun and cool.
The emblematic supporting character here is Ben’s art teacher, Ms. Lyons. The script gives actor Lena Dunham a stereotypical quirky personality (and, conveniently, no other students); Dunham manages to leave an impression only by shamelessly camping it up.
In the end, though, I Wish You All the Best works because of the story’s restraint: because there’s no forced melodrama, we stay with Ben as they navigate a situation that has plenty of inherent challenges. The movie ends up turning on Ben’s search for self-esteem, with Fogelmanis revealing the character’s pain while also staying grounded: Ben is a kid coming out who also happens to be a teenager going through ordinary teenage stuff.
Dorfman is best in Ben’s private moments, finding the character’s interiority in quiet but sometimes ecstatic interludes as Ben tries different styles of dressing or moving. Scenes shared with other characters are more pedestrian, sometimes verging on cheesy, but at least don’t distract from the heart of this human story.
Ultimately, we believe Ben when they say it’s their parents who need more self-knowledge. Maybe that conversion-therapy “spa” they suggest to Ben would be a good place for them to talk it out.
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