The World to Come

This drama from Mona Fastvold is a minor-key tragedy about unremarkable people striving for love and connection.

A portrait of two loveless marriages with two absolutely stone-cold men.

It is a film to remember for its passion - for its belief that those tiny snatches of pleasure are worth holding onto, even if the rest of the world might never believe them even possible.

There's a satisfying literary intelligence at work.

The Gothic thrills are both subtle and properly gut-churning.

It celebrates female desire wrestling to be free of its cage.

The World to Come is a rapturous, inevitably tragic, love story that suggests resolution only in its titular eschatological phrase.

This is a film that tells a familiar story and it is easy to question the need to tell this particular story. However, I was sold by the film by how much I enjoyed watching these characters come to life and seeing their relationship develop over time.

The script, though weak at times, offers interesting conversations on grief, life on the mid 19th century American frontier, the treatment of women and finding solace through matched experiences.

Katherine Waterston and Vanessa Kirby try to keep the narrative afloat with two remarkable performances, but they can’t compensate for the unsurprising, underwhelming storytelling.