Page 152 - Metropolis Megazine No.120 International

ADORABLE

ORIGINAL TITLE
Elskling
DIRECTOR
Lilja Ingolfsdottir
STARS
Oddgeir Thune
Helga Guren
Kyrre Haugen Sydness
COUNTRY OF ORIGIN
Norway
RUNTIME
101 min.
YEAR
2024

There are films that offer us no answers, only a tenderness and emotional closeness, meaning
thick silence where questions echo endlessly, and something like “darling,” “my love,” or “treasure.” Her
«Adorable»—Lilja Ingolfsdottir’s first feature film—is treasure is lost, and Maria (Helga Guren) is forced to
a prime example of this. The director constructs a confront this reality. But she does so serenely.
restrained, almost severe narrative that follows a
woman confronted with the weight of her decisions This refusal of external drama extends to the way the
and the ghosts that arise from them. Personal film constructs its visual space. The cold landscapes
responsibility emerges here not as a sudden gesture of the North, captured in an acid palette of greys
of confession or atonement, but as a slow process and whites, are not mere backdrops: they become an
marked by refusal, doubt, and a kind of dull pain extension of the protagonist's inner confinement.
that the protagonist carries in her gaze. Ingolfsdottir But it is in the interior spaces that the coldness
films with rigorous restraint: each silence seems becomes most palpable—minimalist decorations,
more eloquent than the sparse words, and each shot straight lines, and bare surfaces that seem to block
leaves room for the viewer to feel the discomfort of out any possibility of comfort or warmth. The director
someone running away from herself. Redemption is revealed that she chose to film in real settings,
challenging but we know that life means accepting without artifice, to preserve the sense of closeness
that mistakes linger, even when we think we've and truth that interested her so much. This stripping
moved on. The protagonist's main mistake is down does not seek aesthetic rigour but rather serves
losing her Elskling. This Norwegian word—and as an extension of the protagonist's anguish. The
original title—is an affectionate term that conveys emptiness created by their own decisions is reflected

152 METROPOLIS JULY 2025