User Reviews

Unsentimental, unique, powerful. I was deeply touched by it. Definitely worth watching.

(Mauro Lanari) I read it would be an autobiographical story and that Maria Sødahl did not intend to make a cancer movie. Yet for over half of the feature it is like seeing Haneke's "Amour" again but with the protagonist suffering from a brain tumor and with the style of Zentropa productions: the same drama of an incipient death in an upper-class context (she goes to bed with lipstick). Then it is also true that the centrality of the disease gives way to the analysis of the couple relationship and a romantic frankness, however honesty and realism collide with a direction that does not give up exhibiting an out of place formal talent and some emotional blackmail. Incidentally: is there anyone in Europe who is not bourgeois or who in any case would not want to be? Once Marxist maiutics defeats false consciousness, hasn't it been perhaps discovered that the exploited are disinterested in a paradigm shift and rather desire their part/slice/share of the neoliberal structure? Wouldn't social democracy be based on a refuted anthropology?

A crisis can change a relationship overnight, as is the case for a couple that has been together for a long time but has grown apart over the years. The ordeal offers them an opportunity for reconciliation and redemption, but, most of all, it affords the possibility for the rebirth of much-needed hope. So it is when a middle-aged mother and professional choreographer receives a diagnosis of a terminal brain tumor, prompting her and her theater producer partner to reevaluate the nature of their relationship. It's a difficult process, full of revelations, the surfacing of brutal honesty and the rekindling of romantic feelings that have long been sidelined by other priorities. Norwegian writer-director Maria Sodahl's third feature explores what this couple undergoes when faced with such trying circumstances, a story effectively brought to life by the film's insightful screenplay and the fine performances of Andrea Braein Hovig and Stellan Skarsgard. While the picture can be a heartbreaking watch, it also illustrates that, when there's life, there's hope, a sentiment aptly and succinctly reflected in this offering's simple but appropriate title.