THE STORY – Marianne, a pragmatic doctor, and Tor, a compassionate nurse, are both avoiding conventional relationships. One evening, after a blind date, Marianne encounters Tor on the ferry. Tor, who often spends his nights there seeking casual encounters with men, shares his experiences of spontaneous intimacy and meaningful conversations. Intrigued by his perspective, Marianne begins to question societal norms and explores whether such casual intimacy could also be an option for her.
THE CAST – Andrea Bræin Hovig, Tayo Cittadella Jacobsen, Marte Engebrigtsen, Lars Jacob Holm, Thomas Gullestad, Marian Saastad Ottesen & Morten Svartveit
THE TEAM – Dag Johan Haugerud (Director/Writer)
THE RUNNING TIME – 119 Minutes
“The body is a battlefield,” says Marianne (Andrea Bræin Hovig), a consultant urologist who spends much of her working day giving men their test results, sometimes revealing to them that they have prostate cancer and talking them through a treatment that can have severe side effects. Her colleague, kind-hearted Tor (Tayo Cittadella Jacobsen), is her junior, but he sits in the background and listens to the conversation. He’s often called upon to make up for Marianne’s empathy deficit, noticing when one patient hasn’t understood the diagnosis or giving a gentle embrace when another one bursts into tears. She looks on placidly, dispassionate about giving news about how erectile dysfunction might affect a man, let alone the risk of dying.
Marianne is not cruel; she’s just aloof. If the body is a battlefield, she’s a general looking at it from a hill, far from the bloody and upturned soil. Her indifference extends to her own body and relationships. Traumatized by her parents’ divorce, she is unwilling to commit to a partner and is amused when her best friend Heidi (Marte Engebrigtsen) tries to set her up with a colleague. Heidi is part of the municipal project that organizes important celebrations for Oslo. Her work is about the inclusion of diverse forms of sexuality, and she’s confounded when other backers are put off by her insistence on sexual identity as such an important part of identity. “Isn’t it a bit narrow?” one asks.
Both Marianne and Tor will develop new relationships as the summer days go by. Marianne hits it off with divorced geologist Ole (Thomas Gullestad), finding a model of Oslo’s rock strata disturbingly erotic. But she’s repelled by the fact that Ole’s kids will see her as an interloper, replaying her own childhood difficulties. Meanwhile, Tor, who spends his evenings going back and forth on the ferry between Oslo and the island of Nakholmen, hooks up with strangers via Grindr and meets the middle-aged Bjorn (Lars Jacob Holm), a sad psychologist who, similarly to Marianne, shies away from fully committing to a relationship.
Dag Johan Haugerud’s film is the second part of a film thrupple that began with “Sex” (2024) and will conclude with “Dreams” later this year. As a director, he’s a very good novelist. His characters are nuanced and distinct and the film consists largely of long conversations that are subtly revealing and clever. Minor details create a realistic world full of ideas. When Ole wants to show Heidi’s team the city from the roof, they all have to climb over his boyhood bed and onto the roof. It’s a splendid view but you have to traipse across your childhood to get there.
Everyone has something to learn, and it’s possible to do so without punishment or humiliation. When Marianne and Ole experience their first romantic moment, returning on the ferry, Marianne decides to have the kind of encounter that’s typical for Tor. Far from being casual, it turns into a moment of revelation. She utterly enjoys it, and the film is happy for her. The only person who disapproves is the ostensible sex-positive Heidi, who now finds her morals much more bourgeois than she initially thought.
The nature of Marianne’s work means that a shadow is waiting in the background, but Tor is careful to point out that illness and even the prospect of death shouldn’t deny or limit the possibilities of life. This might sound pat, but when he finds that Bjorn is also one of their patients, he acts on his philosophy with selfless generosity.
Haugerud is fascinated by his characters and lets his actors carry the weight of the film, allowing them time to explore, express themselves, and challenge each other in ways that don’t lead to conflict. Cecilie Semec’s camera captures Oslo and the Island with the flat sunlight of the long days of a Norwegian summer. Oslo isn’t a character as such, but the geology has an unseen effect on the people, as Ole says, and Oslo, in turn, does the same. It’s important to get a panoramic view, but as Marianne learns, eventually, you have to get your hands dirty.
