Film Review – Hope (2021)

There’s something about Christmas, something that can send emotional levels sky high. That seasonal glow of happiness is warmer than ever, and sadness can be darker, more acute. Anja (Andrea Braein Hovig) in Maria Sodahl’s Hope knows this only too well. She experienced the highs over the previous Christmas when she was cleared of lung cancer, but the lows are about to surface again, at a time when everybody else seems to be celebrating.

Back home for the holiday after a successful international dance tour, she’s suffering from headaches and other symptoms, which are diagnosed as a brain tumour caused by her original cancer. This time the prognosis isn’t good: her condition appears inoperable and the medication she needs to take to minimise the symptoms has vicious side effects. And, while she’s coming to terms with the diagnosis and what could follow, she also needs to face the reality of her personal life, where her long-term relationship with partner Tomas (Stellan Skarsgard) has become routine and, at times, distant.

It’s a narrative that cuts like a knife, even more so when you realise this is based on Sodahl’s personal experience and that the doctors and staff in the hospital aren’t actors, but real medics in their own right. As is the compassionate member of staff at the hospice who advises on how to break the news of her cancer to the children – except that she was actually involved in Sodahl’s treatment at the time. It gives the story a touch of shivering reality, while you watch the director stare her past in the face and the couple on the screen consider their less than perfect relationship. In many ways, it makes the film a counterpoint and companion piece to 2019’s Ordinary Love, which saw Liam Neeson and Lesley Manville as a devoted couple coping with her breast cancer diagnosis. A gentler film, but neither dodge the realities of the hospital environment, including those all-important interactions with the specialists and nurses.

The examination of Anja’s and Tomas’s relationship is equally unstinting: he suggests getting married because he thinks that what she wants, she asks him if he’s ever been unfaithful and the answer is hesitant. And the effect on the children – older ones from his first relationship, plus younger ones they’ve had together – is another constant: they all react differently, some clinging to the father, some to the mother. And yet, somehow, Christmas continues. That backdrop of traditions – meals, presents, decorations – provides a constancy and a stability they all need, despite the emotional pressures and fear of the unknown.

Make no mistake, there are times when Hope can be a painful watch, especially for anybody who’s been affected by cancer. But that doesn’t prevent it from being an intelligent, mature story anchored by two great performances and infused with the emotional power of its title.

★★★★

Drama | Cert: 15 | Picturehouse Entertainment | Cinemas, 10 December 2021 | Dir. Maria Sodahl | Andrea Braein Hovig, Stellan Skarsgard, Elli Rhiannon Muller Osborne, Gjertrud L Jynge.

About the Author

Freda Cooper

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Freda is a Senior Writer at The People's Movies. A lifelong movie fan and a film critic for over ten years, Freda’s natural habitat is the darkened rooms frequented by fellow cineastes. She can also be found asking questions of some of the biggest names in the business – from Cate Blanchett to Daniel Craig or Mike Leigh to Pete Docter – or crafting reviews for a number of sites and publications, including The People’s Movies. And listeners to BBC Local Radio can catch her views on the latest releases. She always – and probably always will – cite The Third Man as her favourite film of all time. Her top ten? That’s a moveable feast …..

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