Norway famously gave us Liv Ullmann, muse to the Swedish auteur Ingmar Bergman, but since then, this country of just 5.55 million people continues to punch above its weight, adding a long line of actresses of a similar caliber. Now, to a list that includes Ane Dahl Torp, Helga Guren, Renate Reinsve and many more, we must add Pia Tjelta, whose performance in Nina Knag’s feature-debut — a hard-hitting psychological drama posing as a Sirkian love story — is next-level stuff. As the saying goes, her performance turns on a dime, sending what first appears to a pretty standard, well-meaning story about the global refugee crisis somewhere much more personal and much, much darker.
A striking brunette who would fit very well into Pedro Almodóvar’s repertory company, Tjelta plays Eva, a small-town teacher who has become involved with a grassroots campaign to welcome the steady influx of Syrian immigrants. Her husband Jostein (Kristoffer Joner) is the local mayor and seems to be dragging his feet on the issue, for fear of offending right-wing voters as his term comes up for re-election. But Eva is all in, and hosts a language class where she teaches Norwegian and encourages creative writing.
Read the full review here.