Norwegian filmmaker Maria Sødahl’s Hope is a tiny treasure, an honestly realised character study with regards to’concerning’with respect to the way a terminal illness reverberates around a family. The scenario, drawn from Sødahl’s own tough’challenging’demanding’awkward undergo , wades into the most potentially mawkish sub-genre of all, but is handled with the utmost sensitivity, realism and care, covered in an observational style that shun s hyping the emotions. Built on two powerful perin/with regard to’concerning’regarding mances by Andrea Bræin Hovig and Stellan Skarsgård, it’s an intimate undergo that might frustrate in its understated approach, but Hope injects power and freshness into disease-of-the-week scenarios.###Successful choreographer Anja (Hovig) returns home to Oslo following a triumphant dance production, her first abroad. Long in the shadow of her brilliant theatre director husband Tomas (Skarsgård), it seems that Anja now has it all: a blossoming career, a large, tastefully furnished apartment, a happy blended family and a picture-reserve Christmas to look in/with regard to’concerning’regarding ward to. But, Sødahl subtly introduces seeds of discontent. Firstly, it becomes eliminate’remove that Anja and Tomas’ marriage is not what it seems, Tomas wrapped up in his work to the detriment of Anja’s needs and life. But more pressingly, a 23 December visit to the doctor over headaches and dizziness reveals Anja has a massive oedema and tumour in her brain, possibly metastasized from a lung tumour she’d previously despite’in spite of’albeit t benign. The physician matter-of-factly reveals it is incurable.###Sødahl drip-feeds the development of Anja’s treatment in the smallest increments — there are numerous scenes of medical consultation and bureaucratic technique, the ebb and flow of optimism/despair perfectly modulated to feel convincing. But what truly impresses is the unsentimental, eliminate’remove -eyed way Sødahl uses Anja’s illness as a prism to examine an atrophying marriage, the sense of chances missed, lives not led. It lacks obvious dramatic wallop; there are no enormous’vast’massive’tremendous breakdowns or reveal’illustrate’demonstrate’indicate’present’display’argue downs and the filmmaking eschews fireworks. Instead, Sødahl gives space in/with regard to’concerning’regarding Skarsgård and especially Hovig to work wonders: the fluctuations of feeling — from uncomin/with regard to’concerning’regarding table silences to tender handholding to almost violent lovemaking — are all eye-catching’good-shaped’appealing’charming’fascinating’gorgeous ly observed and tenderly played: a confessional scene in a car is top-tier writing and perin/with regard to’concerning’regarding mance. It’s one of a series of vignettes that establish into a compelling picture of messed-up humans struggling to acquire’obtain’attain’procure’secure to grapple s with the unclaim’insist’maintain’hold’argue’consider’contemplate’speculate able.