‘Love (Kjærlighet)’ Review: First There Was ‘Sex,’ Now Dag Johan Haugerud’s Middle Trilogy Film Looks for What ‘Dreams’ May Come | Venice

Love, the second film in Norwegian writer-director Dag Johan Haugerud’s trilogy exploring human connections (Sex premiered this year at the Berlinale and Dreams is still to follow) in the present day, is a film that dwells in the ephemeral moments. Set during the shining month of August in Norway’s capital, Oslo, the film premiering in Venice’s main competition, follows an ensemble of characters whose interconnectedness allows for many, many conversations on the topics of, well, sex, dreams, and love. Marianne (Andrea Bræin Hovig) is an urologist and for the most part, delivers the bad news to prostate cancer patients. 

In Love’s opening scene, where a shot-reverse-shot recounts that painful conversation between doctor and patient. Soft-spoken and armed with a sympathetic half-smile, Marianne goes through treatment options and outcomes with men of all ages on a daily basis; she makes an impression of a pragmatic, self-sufficient person. In the following scene, it transpires that she is one, unlike Tor (Tayo Cittadella Jacobsen), the nurse in her office who is more attentive to the male patients and recognizes the mechanisms of denial that take over in situations like these. He is not there to correct her or to expose her, not at all, but the two make a wholesome duo that paints a rather moving portrait of what healthcare is in Norway. 

Haugerud is not interested in a conventional social realism though; that’s why his films are tinted with whimsy and a glimmer of hope always shines, even in the darkest corners of the human soul. Lighthearted and giving, Love is a peculiarly feel-good film to conclude the Golden Lion line-up with, even if it ends up being too verbose for its own good. Marianne’s friend Heidi (Marte Engebrigtsen) is a bit of a chatterbox herself and thanks to her well-meaning nagging to date and matchmaker hobby, our single protagonist cannot live her forties in peace and quiet. Even though age is not really a thing in Love, it looms. Marianne is unmarried and childless and her colleague and friend Tor is enjoying casual hook-ups with men instead of looking for a steady thing. Heidi doesn’t exactly disapprove, but she insists on setting her friend up with her divorced neighbor. 

If Love was the first film you’ve seen by Haugerud, it would most probably charm you. The dialogue, however wordy it is, flows naturally and the characters always seem to share a special exchange or a sudden realization about the bigger scheme of things. As such, the film is an ode to anti-cynicism, where even the most skeptic interlocutors believe in the transformative power of love. “Nothing is just sex,” says a guy Tor meets on the ferry one night, unaware that the two will become intimate in surprising ways soon. This line draws attention to a possible meta-narrative function for Haugerud’s trilogy—namely that Love comes after Sex—and yet, the director is as interested in love as he was in Sex, and as interested in discussing sex in Love.

If there is one character in the new film that is the link between the two big themes, it’s Tor. His compassion and openness inspires Marianne to rethink her dating habits and experience spontaneous encounters and one-night stands where “the post-sex talk is sometimes the most intimate part.” Guided by Peder Kjellsby’s score, the film teeters into melodramatic territory, but only formally, while the content remains grounded in the complex rules of dating and coupledom today. 

But the real star of the Love is Oslo, which, is here in its full glory thanks to cinematographer Cecilie Semec’s ability to capture its particularly warm light as the days shorten in August (for the record, that is why Oslo in The Worst Person In The World looked so magnetic). Semec’s camera complements the film’s interest in the city’s urban planning and geological structures by pairing slow landscape pans over golden hour with well-lit facial close-ups of the protagonists as they discuss various aspects of intimacy. 

All in all, Love is a film about shared exploration and the joy of discussing it with another—be it a friend, a lover, or a stranger—and its biggest asset is that it both opens and maintains the space for these discussions to be had. The film is a conversation-starter, but for those long, boozy chats, where one retreats in silence only when a new way of seeing things dawns upon them. Love is a horizon and Dag Johan Haugerud knows that very well. 

Grade: B-

This review is from the 2024 Venice Film Festival where Love world premiered in competition. There is no U.S. distribution at this time.