Oslo, August 31st

The beauty is in the array of animated faces in Anders' life. And it's in the simple promise and vitality of Anders' face, which serves the film without any regard for being in a film, let alone a tragedy or a poetic vision of darkness and futility.

The movie transpires mostly in quiet, engrossing dialogue scenes, and its austere style shares a good deal in common with the protagonist, who seems both opaque and completely exposed.

[Displays] an invigoratingly acute understanding of the psychology of insecurity, longing, defensiveness and inward-turning rage.

"Oslo, August 31st" is quietly, profoundly, one of the most observant and sympathetic films I've seen.

A coolly observed yet boundlessly compassionate day in the life of a recovering drug addict, "Oslo, August 31st" breaks your heart many times over.

Trier proves that he's no one-hit wonder.

In films that are different in style, Joachim Trier shares with Claude Sautet this idea of ​​filming life, a life, in which in the end we add and subtract, to arrive at a barely approximate idea of ​​whether it was worth living or not.

It's the first/last day of Anders's life. He observes other people leading their lives with their ordinary concerns and wishes. Trier and Vogt are gifted writers, never making life's problems black and white and making sophistication easy and likable.

The writing is so authentic it's scary.

This achingly personal tale demonstrates the oppressive claustrophobia of a seemingly sophisticated Scandinavian cultural hub.