Int’l Critics Line: Todd McCarthy On Norway’s Oscar-Shortlisted ‘Hope’
Norwegian director Maria Sodhal made her first feature, Limbo, a decade ago and her second makes the reason for the long time gap dramatically clear: She developed lung cancer, which then metastasized and spread to her brain, a virtual death sentence. But she fought back and lived to make a film about it, the closely observed Hope, which is all she had going for her as she faced almost certain oblivion. It’s grim stuff, to be sure, but the innumerable intimate details and shifting moods keep Norway’s International Feature Oscar shortlist title percolating with the things of life.