Icelandic filmmaker Hlynur Pálmason has proven to be uniquely skilled at capturing seemingly small moments and making them feel truly grandiose. While his last effort, “Godland,” took that to extreme, gorgeous ends, his newest film narrows the scope down to a single family.
In “The Love That Remains,” Pálmason follows a family during a complex period of change. The filmmaker’s own children (Ída, Grímur, and Þorgils) play the offspring of Anna (Saga Garðarsdóttir) and her fiancé, the endearing Magnús (often shortened to Maggi, and played by Sverrir Guðnason) as they navigate a slow-speed break-up. The film’s first trailer only gently hints at what’s to come, but in a thrilling and oftentimes oddly fun spirit, as if we’re watching a nature video about a nuclear family.
In our review from this year’s Cannes, critic David Katz wrote, “Pálmason is an exacting image-maker, giving us crystalline natural panoramas that apportion their beauty carefully, yet his screenplays are deliberately more fragmented, often to their detriment. In ‘Godland’ and his Cannes Critics’ Week calling-card ‘A White, White Day,’ this shattered sense of trajectory spiraled into hypnotic bleakness; here, he braids various fragments to relate a time-honored story of love lost, yet the immaculacy of the construction doesn’t help us feel it as viscerally as he’d like.”
The film world premiered in the non-competitive Cannes Premiere section in May. Its standout canine star, sheepdog Panda, ultimately won the Palm Dog at the festival. The film’s (human) cast includes Saga Garðarsdóttir (“Woman at War”), Sverrir Gudnason (“Borg vs. McEnroe”), Ída Mekkín Hlynsdóttir (“Godland”), Þorgils Hlynsson (“Nest”), and Grímur Hlynsson (“Nest”).
“The Love That Remains” was selected in August as Iceland’s entry to the Best International Feature Film category for the 98th Academy Awards. Pálmason’s previous film, “Godland,” premiered in Cannes Un Certain Regard in 2022 and went on to be shortlisted as Iceland’s candidate for the 2023 Oscars. While it did not make the final nomination cut, the film was critically beloved, including here on IndieWire.
Janus Films will release “The Love That Remains” in theaters on Friday, January 30, 2026. Check out its first trailer below.
