Hope

The day after returning from a tour—on Christmas Eve, in fact—choreographer Anja (Andrea Bræin Hovig) visits her doctor complaining of headaches and dizzy spells. She promptly learns that the cancer she thought she had beaten has returned—and metastasized in her brain. Her partner and the father of their three children, theatre director Tomas (Swedish legend Stellan Skarsgård), is too stunned to speak when they learn that she has perhaps three months to live… So begins Maria Sødahl’s resolutely intelligent and beautifully acted drama, which chronicles a week in the lives of this high-achieving couple, their three kids, and the three kids living with them from Tomas’ previous life. This is honest, emotionally complex cinema for adults

‘Sweden’s Skarsgård and Norway’s Hovig both [excel] under Norwegian director Maria Sødahl’s attentive care. Their swings of emotion—from surly silences to tender handholding to frantic, almost hostile lovemaking—are all painfully real and carefully captured… Sødahl, who first gained attention with 2010’s Limbo, is an artist of quiet, disciplined observance.’—Stephen Witty, Screen