Loveable

I have rarely seen a more obvious Oscar candidate for "Best Picture". It goes straight to the heart, almost attacking the souls of anyone who has experienced a, let's say, normal romantic relationship that lasted beyond the honeymoon phase and ended in a breakup.

You could hear a pin drop in the theater from start to finish. Especially in the second half, it was intense-a psychological shaking that pulls and tugs at the audience, yet restrained and understated, which made the impact even more powerful.

Director Lilja Ingolfsdottir, who also wrote the screenplay and designed the costumes, has created the best film of the year. She has brought on Norwegian actors, relatively unknown, to deliver performances of absolute world-class caliber.

For anyone out there who had/has a family member suffering from mental health issues, or he/she him/herself struggling with such malaise, this film certainly hits home. And it hits hard.

The "familiarity" with which it brought me all these thoughts of my mother - taking care of 4 kids, being 'entrapped' - and how I got affected by her raising me, incapable of being in touch with my emotions and having any connection, to anyone...

I cried. I cried hard, throughout this movie, for the similarities with my own life, my mother's, and my own human experience, are simply hard to ignore...

I wish by now this is less of a taboo - talking about mental state and having difficulty to cope with life in general. I left the theater a bit disoriented, wishing I could talk to someone about what I had just experienced, but failing to think of anyone I could call up...

Loneliness...

Guess this says it all. It resonated and touched me because of strictly personal reasons, but I wish everyone had the open mind and heart to watch this movie and take lessons from it - we're all different, some of us have more difficulty being in touch with their emotions, and pushing people away is not done in self-defense, it's done out of fear.

As a Norwegian, I felt like praising this film. I think it is appropriate, Norwegian film was both ridiculed and often poorly reviewed when I was growing up. There have been some exceptions over the years, but this one puts Norwegian film on the map!

In professional reviews of this film, it was written that all couples should see this film. I would add that it is for absolutely everyone, single or in a relationship.

The film is a close and intimate insight into a relationship that is slowly but surely unraveling. I think many people can identify with the conflicts we witness. This is about blaming other loved ones and blaming them for something that we should perhaps point the finger at ourselves. So the starting point for the film is a fairly young couple, who are struggling terribly. Then the film's main character is revealed and confronted with a different reality than the one she has been hiding behind herself. This phase of the film is incredibly strong and credible. I don't think I've ever seen any actors manage to convey such vulnerability on film before. That this film wasn't Norway's Oscar hope last year is a big mystery to me. But then it has certainly picked up many other film awards. So deserved.

A warm recommendation.

Norwegian cinema is less known in the world than the ones coming from other Scandinavian countries, but lately it has offered some interesting productions, especially films about ordinary people and their relationships. 'Elskling', the 2024 debut film by director Lilja Ingolfsdottir, also falls into this category. If the translation app doesn't fool me, the title is equivalent to 'Darling', but the producers decided to release it on the English-language market with the title 'Loveable', a slightly explicit title in my opinion where more ambiguity would have been more appropriate. It's a film about a marriage in crisis, one of those situations that many of us have gone through or known in our lives. The characters are so natural and the situations are believable, which is a good starting point.

Maria was diverced with two small children when she saw Sigmund at a party and fell in love with him. She searches for him for several months and, when she finds him, she initiates a relationship that seems to turn into a second-chance love story. They get married, two more children are born, seven years pass. The flame seems to be about to die out, especially on Sigmund's side. He is busy with his professional life and claims to need 'space'. Maria, meanwhile, is overwhelmed by raising her four children and frustrated by the fact that she is unable to achieve her own professional fulfillment. Maybe she also needs her 'space'? Maybe, if the relationship is no longer working, that it would be better to divorce? The word 'divorce' is pronounced late and with difficulty. For Maria, trying to be independent, separated from Sigmund and the children, is risky.

I have a problem with films with excessive verbosity, and 'Elskling' is one of them. It is true that part of the film is spent in sessions at the psychologist where Maria and Sigmund arrive together, but Sigmund quickly gets bored and abandons after the first two sessions, leaving Maria as his only patient. It is a good pretext, but not enough, and in a few scenes (especially one of the many scenes with mirrors) the emotions are stifled in words. Too bad, because at other times we are dealing with a sensitive and empathetic sketch of the life of a couple in need of help. Helga Guren is an excellent actress and her Maria joins a gallery of numerous female characters in Scandinavian cinema that are filled with restrained emotion. Oddgeir Thune, the performer of the role of Sigmund, has all the physical qualities necessary for the role plus acting talent. The story and the acting performances will divide audiences in their appreciation of the degree of responsibility of the two heroes in the crisis of their marriage. I was intrigued by one aspect, however, and I don't know if this observation is not related to cultural differences. Here is a film about the breakup of a relationship between two mature people who raise four children together (two born in their marriage, two from the heroine's previous marriage). The two talk a lot on to the other, in the presence or absence of the psychologist. How is it possible that the interests and well-being of the children are never a subject of discussion or an argument for how the relationship will evolve? With these small observations, I think 'Elskling' is an interesting film, coming from an unexpected direction, by a filmmaker who promises to make many other, good films in the future.

Because I try to choose well what I see, I can almost always find some food for thought in a movie or I can get emotional.

But rarely do I cry at the cinema simply out of compassion. This is what happened when I was watching Elskling, a film from Norway about low self-esteem, where it comes from and how it can damage a person's life and relationships.

The plot is very simple: two people meet, fall in love, get married, have children, face some problems and then have to deal with them. However, this same plot is shown in various depths. As the film progresses, layer after layer we get closer and closer to the core of the problem: we see what lies underneath and then what's underneath this new deeper layer. As a result, together with the main character we face the truth. We feel. We learn. And we are ready for the clean slate.

Bravo!