There's something quietly noble - and also deeply perplexing - a Swedish drama set during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. The film follows a care assistant working in a nursing home who gradually becomes alarmed by the institutional negligence and moral inertia she witnesses around her. It's a premise rich with dramatic potential. Unfortunately, the execution is so tepid, so oppressively literal, that you're left wondering not just why the film was made - but for whom.
First: the pacing. Or rather, the lack thereof. There's a difference between "quiet" cinema and storytelling that feels sedated; this leans perilously close to the latter. The characters, though grounded in realism, are written with such numbing restraint that their inner lives feel more like report summaries than real people. The central figure, the assistant, is portrayed with unblinking sincerity - but the script offers her little room to express doubt, rage, or even the kind of conflicted silence that might suggest a buried fire.
Which brings us to the question that haunts the film like its own unresolved infection: why stick this closely to real events? The decision to hew almost documentarily close to early-pandemic nursing home failures - without layering on any real artistic interpretation, stylization, or dramatic escalation - results in a film that feels like a dramatized retelling of a local newspaper exposé. It's ethically sound, perhaps. But cinematically inert.
There is, admittedly, a certain moral integrity in trying to tell the truth without embellishment. And yes, the film does a service by showing how institutions failed the most vulnerable. But there is also such a thing as artistic license, and As Long as the Heart Beats refuses to take any. Instead of harnessing its themes to create catharsis, insight, or tension, it simply... documents.
By the end, one is left not emotionally devastated or intellectually provoked, but vaguely puzzled: was this film meant to stir action? Bear witness? Or simply exist? Whatever the goal, As Long as the Heart Beats is an earnest attempt that ultimately feels more like a public service announcement than a compelling cinematic experience.
