For a film called Hope, Maria Sødahl’s sober drama features many moments that refuse to ignore the very real threat of hopelessness. Based on experiences from the director’s own life, most specifically the cancer diagnosis that interrupted her creative career, Hope pulls no punches, cutting close to the bone and rawly depicting the ups and downs of a relationship between two people whose complicated love is put to a devastating test. Appropriately, it’s not an easy watch, but the achingly authentic performances from its two leads, Andrea Bræin Hovig and Stellan Skarsgård, add just the right amount of spirit to the difficult subject matter, and Hope ultimately unveils an outlook that glimmers with uncommonly mature truth.

Stellan Skarsgard as Tomas and Andrea Braein Hovig as Anja

Artist couple Anja (Hovig) and Tomas (Skarsgård) have built a life together over many years, raising a household of six children (three from his previous marriage and three from their still-unmarried union) and supporting one another in their professional endeavors, she as a renowned choreographer, he as a theatre director. It’s a delicate balance, as is slowly revealed. Their life together has been filled with missteps and stretches of alienation, but they’ve made it work, even through Anja’s lung cancer diagnosis a year prior. But as Hope begins, Anja receives a new diagnosis. She now has a brain tumor and, it being the Christmas holiday, she has to wait for further information on how its seriousness might affect or even end her life.

Set over the course of the days that follow this awful moment, Hope never opts for melodrama, but instead patiently observes the very real experiences of people who are thrust into a situation that requires them to lay bare their hidden emotions and attend to the cracks that imperil their presumed foundations. Through a series of carefully choreographed tableaux, Sødahl deftly explores the inner lives of her main characters, allowing complexity and inconsistency to muddy their assumptions about one another and the audience’s assumptions about their relationship. From the first revealing moment of diagnosis, where Anja’s matter-of-factness is juxtaposed with Tomas’ stunned silence, this couple feels real, neither wholly a saint or sinner, both of them grasping for hope and happiness in very messy, very human ways.

Family conversation on what they are facing.

Even as the dynamic between Anja and Tomas takes centerstage, the director maintains subtle focus on their children. Each one, some budding into adulthood, some yet to reach puberty, is a fully realized character, and Sødahl’s exploration of Anja’s tortured decision over how, when, and if to tell them about this latest development is masterful. The layers of obligation, between partners, between parents and children, intersect and diverge in a dance of avoidance and eruption. As new truths are revealed and the prognosis for the future becomes somewhat clearer, Sødahl’s commitment to acknowledging the intricate nature of the interpersonal over opting for blandly overplayed emotion is always astonishing.

In fact, at its heart, Hope is not just about deadly illness and its uncompromising effect on life. It’s also about the fine line between performance and authenticity. Can true love exist even after the clingy performance of love wears off? Do the lasting gifts of true hope lie somewhere deeper than the desperate performance of hope? How can human beings truly know one another if all of us are constantly trying to maintain a performative posture that obscures our true desires, fears, and selves?

Hope doesn’t aim to simply dramatically depict a future-altering moment for fictional characters on a screen. It succeeds at burrowing deep beneath the surface, inviting viewers to delve far beyond who we wish to be to reveal who we truly are, convoluted creatures shackled by unintentional habits and intentional self-deceptions, all desperate and terrified to shed the costumes we’ve created for ourselves so that we can finally embody the hope awaiting us through unfettered, honest connection.