So this is a movie about relationships, about grief, and also about acting. (And a little bit about driving, but tbh not as much as you’d think.)

I don’t want to say much about the plot, because this is a three-hour movie where the opening credits roll forty minutes in, and there’s a real way in which that makes sense. To some extent, even talking about the ostensible premise of the movie is a spoiler, because it doesn’t start particularly close to that premise.

So let me just kinda talk about the vibes. This is mostly a very repressed movie, in that so much is unsaid or implied, or comes out slantwise as an actor is reading lines (productions of the Chekhov play Uncle Vanya are woven throughout the movie; I’ve never seen or read it, but there are a lot of echoes from its dialogue with this movie’s themes and events). People’s relationships are rarely what they seem on the surface, and their feelings are buried even deeper.

But at the same time, this is a very talky movie, one where two people will just have a conversation for fifteen minutes. So it manages to achieve the twin feats of being both elliptical and verbose.

Which is not usually that popular, so I have to admit, I’m surprised that this was Oscar-nominated. Even apart from not being in English, it’s just not the kind of thing that usually makes Oscar ballots. But good on the Oscar folks for considering it, I guess.

For my part, I think it’s good, but I wouldn’t put it at great. It’s a very B+/4-stars-out-of-5 movie. Recommended if you like slow, talky, sad movies.