‘Let Go’ (2024) Netflix Movie Review - Josephine Bornebusch’s Drama Could Have Been Better

Inside an airport, Gustav (Pål Sverre Hagen), a therapist, quietly uses his phone while his wife, Stella (Josephine Bornebusch), tries to control the chaos caused by her little son's water gun and her daughter's metal pole. This emotional detachment is Gustav's default mode when he is in the company of his wife and his children, Manne (Olle Tikkakoski) and Anna (Sigrid Johnson). The reason for this behavior can be found during an early scene where Gustav returns home from work and walks like a ghost amidst the argument between his wife and his daughter. "Hi," he says, but no one greets him back. They ignore his presence, and Gustav's dead expressions tell us that he is used to such treatment and such an atmosphere. His domestic life has withered, and he feels suffocated. No wonder he starts an affair with a colleague named Angela (Lola Zackow). She exudes sensuality, kindness, freedom. Angela comes into Gustav's life like a breath of fresh air. She comforts him with sex as well as her words. Sometimes, even therapists need a therapist to calm their nerves.

But to understand the gaze of Let Go (aka, Släpp taget), one must go to Stella. Her face is ravaged like a peeled wall. The exhaustion she feels is so intense that it spills over to the tone of this film, so the scenes where the family members quarrel with each other don't give you stress or don't appear like "pressure cooker" situations. Rather, you detect some weariness in these moments as if you, too, are familiar with this noisy routine, just like the characters. Stella says to Gustav, "I feel as if I am your mother." Throughout the film, Stella indeed does the job of a mother. She takes care of the trip to Anna's pole dancing competition by booking the tickets, making gluten-free food for Manne, and handling Gustav's temper tantrums. Stella is also doing something else: Preparing her family for the future. She wants them to (emotionally) grow up. Stella has cancer, which is something that's hidden from Gustav, Anna, and, obviously, Manne. Time is not on her side, so she tries to spend as much of it as possible with Gustav and her children. When Manne asks Stella what superpower she would like to have, she says she prefers having the power to freeze time.

Since Gustav and Anna don't know about Stella's condition, they interpret her "you HAVE to be in my company" behavior as punishment and inconvenience. Anna could have come across as an ungrateful villain during the scene where she tells Stella to leave her. But you see where her anger is coming from. Anna, like any other kid, wants privacy and independence, and Stella's desire - to someone oblivious - can look clingy and irksome. All this indicates that Bornebusch, as writer-director-actor, has given a lot of care to this material. She sensitively handles the movie's mood, giving it a bittersweet charm that appeals to your senses. Hence, it's all the more disheartening when we catch Bornebusch checking certain boxes to pander to a wider audience. The bald head and the shot of Stella lying on a hospital bed are the kinds of images that are put in to trigger an emotional response from the audience. The fact that Bornebusch doesn't linger on them suggests that she, too, finds them inessential because it's evident that her story already contains sufficient emotional punch. Even the point of the final scenes (life goes on) is driven home through sentimental music. It feels as if somebody - an unimaginative studio executive or a hack - told Bornebusch that it's compulsory to insert such obvious elements to reach a broader audience.

Perhaps this is how Bornebusch usually directs (I am unfamiliar with her work, though I have seen Baby Reindeer, and according to IMDb, she directed three episodes of that Netflix show). In this kind of drama, the journey should be equally, if not more, enticing than the destination. Bornebusch, through confrontations, reveals what went wrong with the familial relationship, but she doesn't reveal anything unrelated to the drama at hand. For instance, what attracted Anna to pole dancing? She doesn't talk about the craft, physical exercise, or mental preparations she goes through to perform this dance. The activity merely gives Let Go an excuse to tell its story through a trip. A man confesses to Gustav that he doesn't really like to watch teenagers doing pole dance, so he closes his eyes and sits through the performance for the sake of his loved ones. Well, what are Gustav's thoughts on the same subject? Does he also find this business creepy, or does he not care about such matters? What about Stella? Did she send Anna to pole dancing classes because she is a supportive mother, or did her daughter fight with her? I rolled my eyes when a shop worker also turned out to be a participant. He is only present to give meaning to Anna's "strong together" performance.

A bad filmmaker submits himself to clichés, while a good filmmaker goes for competent execution. A great filmmaker, on the other hand, continues to expand his voice, and his vision until it breaks out of a narrow vision. Bornebusch lies somewhere between good and bad. She should probably start putting more trust in her intuitions and stop listening to that voice that asks her to satisfy the needs of a mainstream audience, which comes at the cost of terrible compromises.

Final Score- [5.5/10]
Reviewed by - Vikas Yadav
Follow @vikasonorous on Twitter
Publisher at Midgard Times