Cannes 2025: ‘The Love That Remains’ is a Perfect Break-Up Movie
by Alex Billington
May 23, 2025
“Af góðu upphafi vonast góður endir.” “A good beginning makes a good ending.” –An Icelandic proverb. Icelandic filmmaker Hlynur Pálmason was quickly become one of my favorite filmmakers working today. Ever since falling hard for Godland as one of the best films of 2022 (my review), I’ve enjoyed rediscovering his previous films and anticipating his new work. His latest feature film is titled The Love That Remains, premiering at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival in the Cannes Premiere section. Much like with Godland, I believe that both of these films deserved to instead be screening in the prestigious Main Competition at the festival. One day he’ll win the Palme d’Or, I am certain of this. Pálmason is an extraordinary filmmaker who not only has an exceptional eye for perfectly framing and capturing dramatic scenes on Iceland, but also a master storyteller. His sense of visual storytelling is distinct, and refined, and he allows the cinematography to tell the story instead of just having his characters talk about whatever is happening. I fell in love with The Love That Remains just as much as Godland, even though this is a story about two people falling out of love.
Written & directed by Hlynur Pálmason, The Love That Remains (or Ástin sem eftir er in Icelandic) depicts a year in the life of a family as the parents navigate their separation. Featuring many playful and heartfelt moments, the film portrays the bittersweet essence of faded love and shared memories amidst the changing seasons. This instantly joins the ranks with Marriage Story as one of THE best break-up films EVER made. For real. Every single shot is brilliant. The score, the lightness of it all, the humor, the honesty, the kids, the dog, everything about it is pure bliss. It may not reach the same heights as Godland (which is an irrefutable masterpiece) but it’s still amazing. And still enjoyable from start to finish. Only slows down a tiny bit in the middle but that’s it. I completely adore this film and will be talking about it the rest of the year and beyond. It’s particularly remarkable how he can make a movie about such a sad & depressing topic and yet make it so uplifting & entertaining. I walked out of this film happier than I did when it started – how did he do that? Maybe that’s exactly what he’s telling us about break-ups? From the opening shot of a roof being ripped off of its foundation, to the end with Magnús drifting alone in the water, this film has so much to say about life.
Panda the dog deserves every award! She’s the best. I’m so glad to see Hlynur give this doggie her own credit at the start. The whole cast is wonderful – Saga Garðarsdóttir as Anna, Sverrir Gudnason as Magnús, and Pálmason’s own kids. Though now I’m left wondering – is he going through his own break-up in real life and made this film to deal with it? Or did he just make a break-up movie and ace it anyway? Because he puts his own kids and his own dog in this movie, I almost believe we’re watching a real break-up between actors Saga & Sverrir. But they have to film so many scenes together and perform for the camera that I am not sure if they would want to go through this just for the sake of making a movie. Nonetheless the believability is off the charts. Which is the grounded foundation of this story. This is such a perfectly crafted work of cinema it doesn’t even need a more expansive narrative. We don’t need to know anything else about the relationship before, or why they’re breaking up. These vignettes of moments are magical to experience on screen and let them hit you in whatever way they will. Some of them are sad, but most of them are full-on, laugh-out-loud hilarious because that’s how life is sometimes. And what better way to deal with sadness than with laughter?
I am such a huge Hlynur Pálmason fan now – this man is a filmmaking master. Love love love everything he does. Anything he makes. I adore his style, adore his choices, adore the way he puts his kids in his films and they actually are perfect characters and make the films better. And just like Spike Lee, he’s got his signature time-lapse shots and every time they pop up in a film I get giddy. No exception with this one. Bravo, Hlynur, bravo. I hope making this film helped you get over your break up. Or whatever you’re going through. Please keep making more films and please keep showing us the unexpected sides of Iceland. I’ll be there every time.
Alex’s Cannes 2025 Rating: 9 out of 10
Follow Alex on Twitter – @firstshowing / Or Letterboxd – @firstshowing
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