Oslo, August 31st

Norwegian director Joachim Trier improves on his debut, Reprise, with the luminously moving Oslo, August 31st. He gives us an aching day of soul-searching: it’s about a once-promising writer (Anders Danielsen Lie) who’s frittered away his chances through drug abuse and hard living. Out of rehab, he tries to reconnect with his past life, receiving a mix of tea and sympathy, bitterness and unanswered phone calls. Trier’s film takes us to some desperate places, but it earns that despair with clear eyes, and the sense of character is finely-honed: Lie isn’t afraid to play up a pugnacious, bristling self-pity, making Anders someone we care about without even necessarily liking all that much.