City of Trees (2019) Movie Review

『Two Women with Different Memories of the Same Place, Now Choosing a Shared Future』

🎥 Movies Overview

• 🎬 Title: City of Trees (2019)
• 🌍 Country: 🇺🇸 USA
• 🎞️ Genre: Romance / Drama
• 📢 Director & Writer: Alexandra Swarens

👩 Cast

• Alexandra Swarens – Ainsley
• Olivia Buckle – Sophie

🧩 Story Deep Dive (Spoilers Included)

🌲 Reunion in a Hometown Where Past and Present Intersect

Photo editor Ainsley returns to her hometown for Christmas, a place filled with both cherished childhood memories and lingering scars. Within the familiar landscapes, she confronts her long-held loneliness and unresolved wounds. There, she unexpectedly meets Sophie, her radiant classmate from high school. While Sophie embodies warmth and care, Ainsley initially struggles to accept her sincerity, weighed down by past misunderstandings. Slowly, the two women begin dismantling the emotional walls built over the years.

💬 “Maybe memory isn’t fact, but a story painted with emotion.”

Though Ainsley and Sophie shared the same time and place during their school years, they remember it differently. Ainsley felt overlooked, while Sophie believed it was Ainsley who built her own walls. These conflicting memories widened the distance between them, feeding years of silence and misunderstanding.

🌿 Breaking Down Walls, Finding Each Other Again

Sophie reaches out with small gestures of care — tending flowers, nurturing trees — to express her feelings. Ainsley gradually opens her heart, rediscovering intimacy with Sophie. Yet her past scars remain. She wrestles with the dissonance between Sophie’s image as someone “loved by everyone” and her own sense of being an outsider. This tension forces Ainsley to face her own insecurities as their relationship deepens.

🤝 Understanding, Forgiveness, and a New Beginning

Eventually, Ainsley accepts Sophie’s sincerity and reflects on how her own fears distorted her memories. Offering a heartfelt apology, she rebuilds the bond with Sophie. Attending their high school reunion together, they symbolically dissolve years of distance, stepping forward as true partners ready to share their lives and emotions.

🦋 Emotional Resonance and Thematic Depth

🎥 Minimalism with Emotional Weight

Director Alexandra Swarens employs minimalist techniques and natural light to capture delicate emotional shifts. The understated cinematography and quiet staging emphasize the characters’ inner worlds, weaving past and present, scars and healing, into a layered emotional journey.

🌲 Symbolism of “Place and Trees” as Memory

The film’s recurring imagery of hometown landscapes and trees symbolizes time, growth, and the roots of relationships. These places act as emotional anchors where Ainsley and Sophie confront pain, rediscover warmth, and find reconciliation. By showing how memory reshapes itself through emotion, the story illustrates how relationships are built on both shared and divergent recollections.

💬 Social Context and Reframing Women’s Love

City of Trees reframes women’s love stories through themes of memory, understanding, and forgiveness. It enriches LGBTQ+ cinema by portraying queer love not only as romance but also as a journey of healing and self-discovery. The film speaks to the challenges of navigating both personal insecurities and societal expectations with honesty and tenderness.

🎯 Personal Rating

• 💕 Love Scene Intensity: ♥♥♥
• ⭐ Overall Rating: ★★★★★