Saw this at a q&a last night because New York is the best city in the world, and aside from the fact that I will have to sue the filmmakers over using my life story without permission, I loved this movie. To me, this is a coming of age story, and I now believe all coming of age stories should be about people entering theirs 30s. Like being 17 or 18, being in your late 20s is such a confusing time because it’s full of mandatory decision-making — who do you want to live with, who do you want to love, what is your career, do you even care — so of course it’s engrossing to watch someone make all these choices and do it in a messy, human way.

I think this movie was able to tackle subject matter as broad as “love” or “life passion” because the filmmakers obviously have a solid understanding of their medium. I loved the set pieces. The surreal moments were fun and meaningful and I felt them deeply. The narration kind of threw me off but not enough to be taken out of the story. I liked the archival-looking moments, reminded me of my guy Mike Mills. I loved that the story was told in chapters, and I think it was the right creative choice to notify the audience up top how many chapters there would be. The storytelling rarely felt meandering because I always knew how many chapters we had left. And wow, the “Cheating” chapter was ……. so hot. During the wedding reception scenes I actually thought to myself “I want to swim in this movie, just absolutely fckn bathe in it.” 

In the q&a Renate said that everywhere they go people tell her “I’m Julie.” Which is weird because actually *I’m* Julie. But someone in the audience started their question by saying “hi! I’m Julie.” And Joachim responded by saying “Thank you for being Julie and being brave enough to admit it. I’m Julie, too.” So I guess there are several Julie’s, idk, will look into it further.

Obviously this movie is relatable. I think it’ll make sense to anyone who’s ever felt passionate about anything. But at the end of the day, this is truly a film for brunettes who currently have, or at one time had, bangs. We didn’t need more of these films (thank you Zooey Deschanel), but this is far and away the best entry in the brunette-with-bangs genre. Bravo.

Note: I am going to go to Oslo because of this shit. God I loved it. Norwegians are weirdos.