Cast: Glenn Close, Emily Matthews, Anders Danielsen Lie Review by Carol Allen
Three people arrive at a simple cabin where they have obviously spent many a summer holiday together. There’s the father (Anders Danielsen Lie), his mother (Glenn Close), who is in her eighties and his eight year old daughter Sophia (Emily Matthews). We very soon realise someone is missing. Sophia’s mother has recently died and the family is trying to come to terms with their loss.
The main interaction is between grandmother and grandchild as the old woman helps the child to come to terms with her loss. Close, almost unrecognisable beneath half a ton of skilful ageing make-up, is very convincing as the old woman. She even has false teeth – supplied, the end credits tell us by, Fangs FX! Sometimes walking with a stick, sometimes strangely not needing it, as she walks outside the cabin in the dawn light in her bare feet, she shows endless patience and love as she encourages the child to chatter away while they sit outside the cabin,wander the island and explore the neighbouring ones. While when she’s by herself, there’s nothing Gran enjoys more than relaxing with a crafty cigarette. One of her most poignant scenes is when she lets Sophia see the other side of age and wisdom and rails against the way age can remove your memories.
Young Emily Matthews in her first film role and a challenging one at that, gives an assured and often touching performance. Danielson as her father is silent and withdrawn for most of the time, reading, drawing, planting a tree in his wife’s memory, until the storm which provides the climax of the story and releases his emotional storm as well and we see Close in her role as mother as well as grandmother.
The islands of the Finnish Gulf make for a very beautiful setting and we get a lot of lyrical shots of sky, sea and foliage. And there’s frankly not a lot of action. But in its favour the film is poetic, leisurely and beautiful to look at. And Close is very good indeed.
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