Icelandic filmmaker Hlynur Pálmason has confirmed to be uniquely expert at capturing seemingly small moments and making them really feel actually grandiose. Whereas his final effort, “Godland,” took that to excessive, attractive ends, his latest movie narrows the scope right down to a single household.
In “The Love That Stays,” Pálmason follows a household throughout a fancy interval of change. The filmmaker’s personal youngsters (Ída, Grímur, and Þorgils) play the offspring of Anna (Saga Garðarsdóttir) and her fiancé, the endearing Magnús (typically shortened to Maggi, and performed by Sverrir Guðnason) as they navigate a slow-speed break-up. The movie’s first trailer solely gently hints at what’s to return, however in an exhilarating and oftentimes oddly enjoyable spirit, as if we’re watching a nature video a few nuclear household.
In our overview from this yr’s Cannes, critic David Katz wrote, “Pálmason is an exacting image-maker, giving us crystalline pure panoramas that apportion their magnificence fastidiously, but his screenplays are intentionally extra fragmented, typically to their detriment. In ‘Godland’ and his Cannes Critics’ Week calling-card ‘A White, White Day,’ this shattered sense of trajectory spiraled into hypnotic bleakness; right here, he braids numerous fragments to narrate a time-honored story of affection misplaced, but the immaculacy of the development doesn’t assist us really feel it as viscerally as he’d like.”
The movie world premiered within the non-competitive Cannes Premiere part in Could. Its standout canine star, sheepdog Panda, in the end gained the Palm Canine on the competition. The movie’s (human) forged contains Saga Garðarsdóttir (“Lady at Warfare”), Sverrir Gudnason (“Borg vs. McEnroe”), Ída Mekkín Hlynsdóttir (“Godland”), Þorgils Hlynsson (“Nest”), and Grímur Hlynsson (“Nest”).
“The Love That Stays” was chosen in August as Iceland’s entry to the Finest Worldwide Function Movie class for the 98th Academy Awards. Pálmason’s earlier movie, “Godland,” premiered in Cannes Un Sure Regard in 2022 and went on to be shortlisted as Iceland’s candidate for the 2023 Oscars. Whereas it didn’t make the ultimate nomination lower, the movie was critically beloved, together with right here on IndieWire.
Janus Movies will launch “The Love That Stays” in theaters on Friday, January 30, 2026. Try its first trailer beneath.
