The Love That Remains

With apologies to Rod Stewart, what if the first cut isn’t the deepest? What if the cuts keep coming, the wound won’t heal and there’s no obvious way to staunch the bleeding?

That’s roughly where middle-aged dad and trawlerman Magnús finds himself in Hlynur Pálmason’s Icelandic family drama. Played by Sverrir Guðnason (Borg/McEnroe’s Bjorn Borg) with rumpled affability and a semi-permanent sense of puzzlement, ‘Maggi’, as he’s known to everyone, is lonely and struggling in the aftermath of his recent separation from long-time partner Anna (Saga Garðarsdóttir). He’s outside the family home, now, but pops in to see their three growing children before he embarks on another herring season in the Atlantic. Like the family’s sheepdog Panda, he’s scratching at the door, trying to get back in.  

For artist Anna, played with steel and soul by Garðarsdóttir, the break-up means gently brushing off her ex’s clumsy entreaties to give it another go, gently but firmly reinforcing the family’s porous new boundaries, and rediscovering her own inner life. She has a new metalworking studio and a patch of countryside where she leaves her sculptures to rust. Rogue horses and a self-involved gallery owner are a reminder that artistic expression will be hard won. 

The landscapes may be equally stunning but The Love That Remains is a major change of pace for Pálmason after his haunting period piece Godland charted spiritual alienation in 19th century Iceland. Here, the gifted filmmaker exchanges austerity for looser vibes and a fragmented, collage-y feel that channels the familiar rhythms of domestic life: lively gatherings at the dinner table; washing-up (eventually) getting done; sibling squabbles. The extrovert Panda, in a canine acting performance that earned him the Palme Dog at Cannes, is one family member whose spirit never flags. 

It feels autobiographical, and it is, to a degree – especially with Anna’s metallic art technique mirroring Pálmason’s own and the director’s real kids, Ída Mekkín, Grímur and Þorgils, playing the family’s boisterous teenaged children. The intention, though, is not to channel the grit and gristle of a real break-up in the manner of Noah Baumbach’s Marriage Story, but to show emotionally connected people dealing with transition with as much strength and grace as they can muster.

Witty interludes and surrealistic touches, including a medieval knight that the kids slowly assemble, a giant rooster appearing at Maggi’s door and a plane that plunges, unexplained, into the sea, all echo Roy Andersson’s absurdist portraits of life. But the symbolism is lightly worn here in a gently observational film that’s underpinned with humanism and compassion. Here, the healing happens when you’re busy worrying about the dishes. 

In UK and Ireland cinemas now.