Vera (Asta Kamma August) and André (Herbert Nordrum) are about to give a pitch that they hope will secure extra funding for their new business endeavour. It's arguably the biggest day of their lives, which is why the timing seems right for Vera to try quitting smoking via hypnotherapy. Unfortunately, that session leaves her in a state far removed from what has often been viewed as her normal self, which could be disastrous for the pitch presentation. Or maybe it will work in their favour.
Very reminiscent of the much-celebrated Toni Erdmann, this is a film that works best when showing people struggling with someone in their midst who is quite obviously not acting how society has trained everyone to act, and the first half of The Hypnosis has some moments of absolute brilliance, mainly thanks to André being so unprepared to deal with an honest Vera who looks as if she may be about to self-sabotage what they have been planning for a very long time. The third act gets a lot trickier though, and director Ernst De Geer, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Mads Stegger, cannot quite keep a handle on something so slippery and delicate.
This is the debut feature from De Geer and Stegger, although both have worked together on numerous shorts and some TV work over the past five years, and it's easy to see how they have prepared themselves well here. Although the script doesn't hold water for the duration, it's good enough to make the best bits far easier to remember than the weaker moments. There's also an excellent pair of leads heading up a talented cast of people who are all consistently believable as things around them become harder to comprehend.
August gets the better of the two roles, able to have more fun in the scenes that have her surprising people with her lack of care for any social etiquette, but Nordrum has a great way of looking almost permanently dazed while he considers the best way to approach any situation, before going on to so often make the wrong choice. David Fukamachi Regnfors brilliantly epitomises the kind of smug leader who pretends to be open to collaborations and conversations until they veer too far away from wherever he can keep everything under his control, and Andrea Edwards and Moa Niklasson are very good as event attendees looking to have their own success, but also trying to act more confident and friendly as everyone jostles with one another to be noticed and given some praise.
Fun when it is being, well, fun, it’s a shame that things become more uncomfortable and unsettling when things start to feel like an illustration of a major mental health episode. There are a number of other films that deal with this kind of idea in a better way, a way that keeps the playfulness more clearly delineated from the serious implications, and I would recommend you check out those films first. But I would still also recommend this. It is good, but falls quite short of being great.
6/10
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