The Only One – A Story of Return, Reassessment, and Regret. But romance?

April 16, 2025

Rating: 3/5

How would you react if you walked into your kitchen one morning only to find the woman who walked out on you six years earlier?

That’s the situation David (Jon Beavers), a young vineyard owner, finds himself in the movie The Only One (also known as Horse Latitudes) when Tom (Caitlyn Stasey) reappears, uninvited but not unwelcome.

Tom’s motives are unclear. Is she back to rekindle something real? Or is she simply recycling a discarded relationship as a temporary distraction while she figures out where to go next?

Her arrival is met with mixed reactions. David’s sister Em (Blake Lindsley) greets her with open arms, but Em’s husband Rob (Hugo Armstrong) is openly hostile. At first, his grudge seems petty — he believes she once stole a bike from him — but it quickly becomes clear that he sees her as a poor influence on David, who turns out to slowly be overwhelmed by the pressures of running his machine-free, organic vineyard.

And there is pressure. The grapes are ripe, the harvest is imminent, and David’s horse — essential to the vineyard’s operation — has just died. But instead of urgently finding a replacement, David drifts, distracted by Tom and her sudden presence in his life.

Rob, though nominally on vacation, has his own vision for the vineyard. He runs its Instagram account, snapping and editing glossy photos to help market its idyllic appeal. While David trudges through vineyard duties, Rob polishes images. He wants Em to take a photo of a rustic barn during a horse-shopping trip, but spends time tinkering with his beloved motorcycle. His detachment from the day-to-day grind underscores his misunderstanding of what it takes to actually keep the vineyard afloat.

As David continues to stall, Tom becomes both a refuge and an excuse. She pulls his attention away from work and toward possibility — but only temporarily. Eventually, both she and David must face the inevitable: to stay or go, to pair up or split.

So why did Tom return?

Tom is asked three times why she’s come to the vineyard. She never answers.

The simplest assumption is that she came to see if David and the life he’s chosen might be something she could commit to.

But by the end of the film, she walks away again.

Why didn’t she stay?

Because they are fundamentally incompatible. She needs someone strong enough to match her will. David, for all his charm and sensitivity, folds when around her. He doesn’t push back. His boundaries disappear in her presence. Her disappointment builds quietly, and by the time she leaves, it’s with a resigned clarity that the spark she hoped to find just isn’t there.

Tom is a wanderer in body, but David is a wanderer in spirit. He’s unmoored, reluctant to lead, quick to react, and surprisingly weak willed.

The road not taken

David explain Robert Frost’s poem The Road Not Taken to Tom, but doesn't seem to fully understand its implications, and dismisses his father's appreciation for the poem as just the old man being "pretty nostalgic all on his own" when Tom asks about it. Tom is acutely aware of its meaning. Late in the film, David’s neighbor, Mme. Gerard (Niseema Theilaud), gently makes the same point to her: every choice will bring both happiness and sadness. "It's fucked," as she puts it.

Tom understands that choosing David means other paths in her life will go unexplored, and she concludes he may not be worth the price.

Peeling the onion: why Tom leaves David, again

From their first interaction, David is overly accommodating. He not only lets Tom smoke in the kitchen, he bums a cigarette from her. When she opens a vintage bottle he told her not to touch, he initially lashes out but quickly backpedals and opens twelve more bottles in an unsolicited attempt to appease her, undermining the reverence he’d expressed for them only moments earlier.

Later, he impulsively tosses her phone into a row of grapes when she notices it's getting late, the same rows he’d scolded Rob for riding his motorcycle in when they are supposed to be free of modern machines and devices.

Their trip to the coast is another impulsive decision by David, as is his carelessly blowing off an important meeting with horse owner looking to finalize a transaction.

In a flashback, we learn that Tom manipulated David into a bar fight simply by implying - falsely - two strangers insulted her.

Tom’s background

Raised by a strict military father, Tom moved frequently, lived frugally, was allowed to eat only healthy local foods, and secretly played guitar on the streets to earn money for forbidden McDonald’s treats. She is unrooted, but her dad's strict standards are impressed on her, and his strength of conviction is a stark contrast to the wilting nature of David's inner compass.

Rob’s naïve outlook

Rob is a decent man, but his view of the vineyard is shaped by aesthetics, not labor. He doesn’t understand the toll it takes on David. When he learns David may walk away, he lashes out, blaming Tom — not out of cruelty, but confusion. To him, the vineyard is paradise. How can someone reject paradise?

His worldview is small. His work is digital. At the vineyard, he’s like a kid in a candy store, oblivious to the cost of all the goodies.

During a dinner he holds forth on how successful his branding message is, claiming that while other vineyards promote lifestyle, he pushes "the style of life." Tom points out that "the style of life" doesn't mean what he thinks.

The motorcycle that Rob worked on breaks down when David and Tom ride it to the coast.

Simply put, Rob, while a hard working man, is a bit out of his depth.

The strange case of Em and Rob’s past with Tom

One oddity lingers: How do Em and Rob know Tom?

Em greets her like an old friend. Rob calls her by her real name, Natalie. But in a lunch scene with Mme. Gerard, Em insists they’ve never traveled abroad, save for two trips to Canada. There’s no mention of ever visiting Dublin, where Tom and David met. It’s a strange inconsistency. It doesn’t change the story, but it’s noticeable.