Hipnosis

The 2023 directorial debut of Swedish filmmaker Ernst De Geer was an intriguing albeit not altogether successful satire about modern millennial relationships. The plot focuses on André and Vera, a young professional couple who have developed a woman's health app they have been invited to present at an elite startup conference. Just prior to their presentation, Vera sees a hypnotherapist to help her quit smoking, but something deeper unexpectedly affects her attitude and behavior. Much of the story revolves around Andre's increasingly desperate responses to Vera's wildly unpredictable actions, which start as comically inappropriate and become more and more bizarre. The film falls short on what direction De Geer decides to take the story as he doesn't fulfill either the dark comedy potential or the more tragic implications of the characters' choices. Asta Kamma August and Herbert Nordrum are stoically effective as Vera and André, though I wish they were directed to play their roles with more comic panache.

I should have left in the middle but I was waiting for something to happen, but it did not. The movie just bacame more and more embarassing. I didn't get why the couple acted the way they did. In everyone's life there are sometimes these situations with great embarassment that you can't control, but it went on and on with no way out. I guess there is some social criticism in the movie. I didn't get it. It was boring. I heard people around me admire the movie but I don't know why. I say to everyone I know don't go. I would realy like to read what others say about this movie because I don't know why it was done.

After watching this one, I'd probably give hypnotherapy a try:-) Only joking.

Well, this is a very clever and absolutely hilarious comedy portraying such a serious issue as child humiliation by their parent in a playful and comic manner. Not only is it super funny, but it's extremely suspenseful, the acting is brilliant, the script is genius, I really enjoyed every minute and laughed out loud.

Don't want to spoil it but bottom line: it is how different it feels to be yourself and to be someone else or someone someone else wants you to be. Best movie from Norway this year without a shadow of a doubt!

At least half the running time of Hypnosen / The Hypnosis, I thought seeing a movie made by Seidl or Haneke, the famous Austrian film makers who make you feel uncomfortable while watching, yet make you stay until the very end and endure the proceedings. Later in the story, the intentions became clearer, to turn into social commentary. And still later, it changed its purpose again (I think), telling us to drop our social harness.

For lots of reasons we can consider this movie as social commentary indeed, though more or less in disguise. Firstly, it went farther than only exposing the nonsensical culture of sales pitches before an assembly of investors who are eagerly looking for the next niche product that makes them rich and look successful. That alone could have been the subject of a feature length movie. It is the way startups are born, or grow too fast due to greedy investors and meet a stop block. Secondly, another nice topic exposed here is that attending a seminar to practice and iteratively bring the sales pitch to perfection, under the guidance of a renowned guru (or self-acclaimed expert?), is a useless industry and a waste of time and effort too.

Storytelling wise, I was glad to see several plot elements proficiently used. One example was the same Internet/WiFi router appearing twice in two different but important scenes. A second example was the "appearance" of imaginary dogs (mind the quotes, the "dogs" were imaginary), coming about in two also different but even more important scenes.

Apart from the social commentary, there is more interesting stuff. I deduce that the crucial takeaway from the hypnosis session was not getting rid of a smoking habit, but rather loosening the harness we find ourselves in when in company, and especially in situations we are used to call "social" interactions. Not until 3/4 of the running time before the pieces fell in their proper place. It perfectly fits the story with both imaginary dogs that we see before and after this explanation, at least that is as I experienced it in hindsight.

Yet, the final score for me is a 6/10, mainly because I needed some time to grasp what it was all about. It took relatively long to get where the film makers wanted us to be. And I suspect that this happened to others as well. Maybe that is why the movie seems to be misunderstood, a feeling that I got when asking around after leaving the venue. Similarly, the user reviews on IMDB are also mostly beyond the point as I see it. However, maybe I got the message or the morale of this movie wrong as well.

All in all, ample humor and unexpected plot twists kept me awake, eagerly waiting for the next surprise. I was not disappointed, despite being a fan of the SciFi and Horror genre in general, that this time the hypnosis did not plant something evil or dangerous. The plot drove us in a totally different direction, much better suiting the ingredients.

Raw, unsettling psychological drama that taps into a generational crisis - the constant feeling of not being enough unless you're building a startup, changing the world, or fitting perfectly into society's clean-cut image of success.

The main character - metaphorically and literally - pisses on social norms, refusing to play the game. His descent isn't madness, it's rebellion. It's a wild, awkward, often uncomfortable challenge to what we consider sane, polite, and acceptable.

Ernst De Geer pushes viewers to the edge of discomfort, exposing the absurdity of roles we're hypnotized into playing. The film questions everything - identity, freedom, expression - and dares to suggest:

Maybe it's time to shake things up?

Shake it up.