Loveable

From the producer of The Worst Person in the World comes a melodrama that cleverly reminds us the most important love is the one we give ourselves. Although Loveable (winner of five awards at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival) begins with scenes from a marriage, at its heart is Maria (Helga Guren), who finds the courage to give herself a second chance after the collapse of her first relationship. One glance is all it takes—she feels as if she’s known Sigmund (Oddgeir Thune) her whole life and their passionate fling quickly deepens into something more serious. Lilja Ingolfsdottir’s debut starts where most love stories end—with “happily ever after.” What follows is real life: Maria and Sigmund in a patchwork family where unfulfilled ambitions, school troubles, unspoken feelings, conflicting needs, and buried resentment build into an emotional time bomb that eventually explodes. Empathetic but unflinching, full of anger and tears, yet ultimately therapeutic, the Norwegian filmmaker’s intimate drama believes in second chances. For Loveable, crisis is not the end—it’s the beginning of a beautiful, new relationship: with oneself.