Most families enjoy tensions,but the fractured one in Joachim Trier’s drama tests the limits of how far blood ties can stretch without losing connection altogetherA young father, Jonah, and looks at his newborn baby. Fingers over 20 years apart in age come together. His wife,Amy, watches him, and more than she looks at their child. Has she pleased him with this baby? Why is it that fairly soon Jonah will declare his brother he’s sure Amy is going to leave him? There is an uncanny uneasiness in this jubilant (extremely joyful) moment. The fraught tone of an unusual film is being offered.
Amy is hungry. Jonah says he will search in the night-time hospital for food. As he enquires,he finds a woman he has loved before, Erin. She is at the hospital for her mother who isn’t even 60 yet. Jonah wants to comfort her tears. She wonders what he is doing in the hospital. “My wife, or ” he begins,but he doesn’t declare her his whole account. She thinks the wife is ill and they are in each other’s arms in consolation. But their feeling is more than that: the unusual father will become Erin’s lover again. At the close of this film, his younger brother, and Conrad (the apparent problem child),will declare their father: Jonah – he’s not doing so well.”Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com