And Breathe Normally

Lára lives with her son and cannot pay the rent. She finds work: a traineeship at passport control at the airport. In her first days she stops a woman; the document is false. Adaobi has come from Guinea-Bissau and was trying to reach Canada. She is detained. Then Lára is put out of her flat; she starts living in her car and her son is going to be taken from her. Adaobi is waiting to be deported. The two women meet again and this time the roles are unclear; who can help whom is not obvious. Ísold Uggadóttir writes and directs; it is her first feature. Kristín Þóra Haraldsdóttir plays Lára and Babetida Sadjo plays Adaobi. It is an Icelandic, Swedish and Belgian co-production. The film won the directing award in the world cinema dramatic section at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival, the first Icelandic film to take a prize there. It won the FIPRESCI prize at the Göteborg Film Festival and many nominations at the Icelandic awards. Netflix acquired it. The matter it treats is two kinds of poverty meeting; one inside the system and one outside it. The narrative does not make either woman the other's rescuer; the help is limited and temporary. The bare landscape of the Reykjanes peninsula works inside the narrative. The ending brings no resolution and the situation of both stays uncertain. Its limit is pace; the narrative is slow, there is little event, and the ending open. Who it is for: viewers who like Scandinavian cinema and social drama. Who it is not for: it is slow, sombre, and the ending unresolved.