Pálmason's scenes of a disintegrating marriage are full of dry Icelandic wit
Less stark and extreme than the director's previous three films because this one is about that everyday topic, the disintegration of a marriage, or one year in the life of a slow separation.. But this is adventurous filmmaking, too. It's a random series of vignettes, appropriate because due to the desire of the man, Magnus, "Maggi" (Sverrir Gudnason) to remain around, life is disjointed and could be confusing to the twin boys, if not the older daughter. But it's not just scenes from a disintegrating marriage. There is the humor and the surreal element. There is the annoying, aggressive rooster, which Anna (Saga Gardarsdottir) asks Maggi to get rid of (resulting in a comical struggle and a surreal revenge). There is the clothed scarecrow with the metal helmet that the kids shoot arrows at, which becomes a sort of golem. There is the black and white Icelandic sheepdog, Panda (named in the opening credits). And by the way, the kids are played by the director's own children.
Magnus works on an industrial fishing boat, which may remind you of Leviathan, the intense doc about that world by Harvard ethnographers Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Véréna Paravel . His job takes him and has taken him long away from hearth and home - perhaps helping to explain why he is so reluctant to stay away wheh he's back on land. This job also means he has not played a close role in the raising of the kids.
More attention's given to Anna's job. She's an artist. The opening shots of the film are of the roof being taken off the big open space that was her studio. In response she moves to working on femote family land, stark, Icelandic, close to water, windswept, to produce canvases organically, using rust, along with flat earthworks-like sculptures out of many pieces. These convincing objects are the work of the director himself. As is the 35 mm. cinematography: he was his own dp.
Given these circumstances the scenes of the kids are extremely natural, almost off-puttingly so, because they are constructed out of life, not a screenplay. Gudnason and Gardarsdottir are left to play their domestic squabble scenes as an alternate theme, with the harsh weather and rough landscape, the frisky sheepdog and the bossy rooster minor accompaniments. It is a go-with-the-flow movie valuing atmosphere and mood over plotline, and sometimes when there is a striking event, like the crash of the Cessna plane in which the obnoxious Swedish art dealer leaves after his frustratingly inattentive studio visit and absurd lecture at dinner on how five glasses of wine a day make you healthier than one or two - it's Anna's fantasy, Pálmason's surreal humor. Guy Lodge's appreciative Variety review calls this film "Wise and lyrical and strange."
Perhaps the structure seemed too loose, the humor too dry, leading to Pálmson's film being included in the Premieres section rather than among the Competition films at Cannes, but it's logically Iceland's official entry for Best International Feature Film at the 98th Academy Awards. If you see it and like it and the director is new to you, you may take it as a palate cleanser for the sterner stuff of his three earlier films, which I recommend: Winter Brothers (2017), A White, White Day (2019), or if their icy themes seem too punishing, go straight to the most seen one, Godland (2022), available on the Criterion Channel, the grandest, and quite wonderful, a historical epic about a young Danish priest who journeys across a remote, unforgiving 19th-century Icelandic landscape.
Whatever Pálmason does next, I'll be there.
The Love That Remains (Icelandic: Ástin sem eftir er), 109 mins., premiered at Cannes (Premieres section) May 18, 2025. It was included in over two dozen international and US festivals in 2025 including New York. US theatrical release Jan. 30, 2026.k. Metacritic rating: 76. Can be watched now on multiple platforms online including Apple, Amazon, and Criterion.