Direction: Emily Atef
Country: France
In Emily Atef’s death-related drama More Than Ever, Vicky Krieps invests passionately in her performance, releasing a subtle discomfort that comes between exasperation and swallowed tears. This film is certainly a strange experience if we think that it marked Gaspard Ulliel’s last performance after the tragic skiing accident that took his life in 2022. He was 37.
Hélène (Krieps), who is in her early thirties, and Mathieu (Ulliel) try to organize their Parisian life after the former is diagnosed with a rare, progressive, and ultimately terminal disease called IPF - idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. Their love is strong but the visibly depressed Hélène, for her own sake, decides to make a trip to Norway and stay with a blogger (Bjørn Floberg) she met online.
Between Paris and the Norwegian fjords, a slow agony unfolds with quietude but also luminous hope of reaching a higher state of mind. In each shot, Atef breathes sensitivity, but her approach suffers from a stiffness that is compared with the romantic stillness that affects the protagonist's spiritual process.
Profoundly human and saddled with a mix of somber and limpid energy, More Than Ever is, in some measure, a slightly conventional work that could have explored its characters a bit deeper. Still, we can’t help feeling sorry for this strong, searching young woman, whose life changed so abruptly. Not necessarily bowled over by what I was seeing, this is not a dislikable drama.
