THE LOVE THAT REMAINS

“The Love That Remains plays out with remarkable intuition and sensitivity about its troubled characters, ones who try to love and reckon with hard feelings when those endeavours don’t work out, and you have to sift through the rubble to find meaning.

Some find it in their art; some don’t find it at all. And that floating feeling is one that Pálmason captures expertly, especially in his patient final frames.”

“Spiralling into surrealism as ordered lives and minds unravel, Pálmason’s fourth feature is an album of achingly felt, morbidly funny and increasingly haywire scenes from a marriage.

Arguably unlucky not to have been granted a Competition slot at Cannes — it played instead in the non-competitive Premiere section — it nonetheless confirms Pálmason’s growing stature and singularity as an auteur.”

“An obnoxious Swedish art dealer who patronises Anna and her work meets a terrible end. A sword lands Pythonesquely from the sky just next to the children’s sword-target which has a medieval helmet. Meanwhile, near Magnus’s trawler, an old second world war mine has appeared – another flourish of metaphorical danger.

The effect is tender, sympathetic, diverting and often very elegant and indirect. But it withholds from us the full, real pain of damaged love.”

Film Facts

• The film had its world premiere in the Cannes Premiere section of the 2025 Cannes Film Festival on 18 May, where the lead animal actor, Panda, won the Palm Dog Award.
• The three children in the film are all the real-life children of director Hlynur Pálmason.