HAP/ HOPE
Norway/Sweden, 2019, 126 minutes, Colour.
Andrea Braein Hovig, Stellan Skarsgaard.
Directed by Maria Sodahl.
The action of this film, hopefully titled Hope, takes place from Christmas Eve to New Year’s Day.
We are introduced to Anja, a talented theatre director, who returns home to her family, to her partner and their children. While there is obviously some tension between the couple, there is great joy in her return to her children.
However, despite the title, it is very quickly revealed that Anja has been diagnosed with cancer. So, this theme pervades the time of celebration, gives much edge to it, and challenges the couple to re-examine the relationship.
With the festive celebrations, many guests are invited for Christmas dinner which puts a strain on Anja. Then there is the announcement about the diagnosis, the reactions of the children, the mixed reaction of Tomas (who tries to be cheerful in offering Anja an overseas trip, something of a pipedream).
Anja celebrates her birthday on New Year’s Eve so there is a mixture of joy and pathos as she faces the coming year. However, she is able to confide in a good friend, Vera.
There is a further complication which rouses audience interest and feelings, the fact that the couple have never been married. Tomas suggests that they do have a wedding ceremony, Anja initially hesitant and wondering, and the decision made so that the partnership might be strengthened, especially in this dire cancer time.
Since the action takes place over the one-week, the audience is invited, especially in the close ups at the end, to reflect on what the coming weeks and months will mean to Anja and Tomas, and how Anja physically and emotionally. That seems to be something of the meaning of the title.
The publicity notes indicate that the story is based on the experience of the director, Maria Sodahl. It is an expertly dramatised in the writing and also in the performances by Andrea Braein Hovig and Stellan Skarsgaard as Tomas and Anja.
1. A true story, the experience of the director? The professional woman, the family and relationships, the issue of cancer?
2. The Norwegian settings, theatre, home, hospitals, doctors’ offices?
3. The action taking place over one week, the significant days, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, New Year’s Eve, the birthday?
4. The cancer theme, illness, diagnosis, the range of options, surgery, terminal illness?
5. The significance of the doctors, the details of their explanations? The effect on Anja, for better audience understanding?
6. The effect of the patient, her uncertainty, fear, pain?
7. The effect on the family, her confiding in the family, their having to cope, telling her husband, his being able to accept the situation and not, his awkwardness, the Christmas dinner, the offer of the gift of the trip, lacking sensitivity? The range of guests and the strain on the patient? Her daughter, close, sharing with her? The younger children?
8. The relationship, the couple not married, their experience of the week, the theatre and the applause, coming home, reuniting with the children, the young and their playfulness, her husband and his getting the older children to supervise the younger, his preoccupation with his work?
9. Discovering the illness, recognise it, the doctor’s the prospects?
10. Christmas dinner, the scenes of play, the father and the children climbing on him, everybody else, the collapse and jollity? The unreality of the illness pervading the week? The buildup to the patient’s birthday, her becoming weaker, discussions about possible surgery and consequences?
11. Tomas, his coping or not, the tensions, the many years together, not married, the suggestion about the marriage, the proposal, her finally agreeing, the hesitancy, Vera and the
selection of the dress, the preparations? Fixing the past?
12. Vera, friend, sympathetic character?
13. The New Year, Anja and her focus, life and death, the final close-ups?
