Three years ago, Cannes audiences fell in love with Renata Reinsve, the cover star of the Norwegian competition entry The worst person in the world. Chances are they won’t be quite as sympathetic to their character in this austere drama from countryman Halfdan Ullmann Tøndel, grandson of Norwegian actress Liv Ullman and Swedish author Ingmar Bergman. Tøndel’s lineage should give you a good idea of what’s in store here, but surprisingly so Armand doesn’t penetrate particularly deeply into the human psyche and ultimately ends up in a strange no-man’s land between intense character drama and deep black comedy.
Reinsve plays Elisabeth, and as we can guess from the opening sequence in which she goes full throttle on a leafy country road, Elisabeth is a drama queen in every sense of the word, an actress who still wears the hoop earrings she needs to their latest version to play part. She has been summoned by Jarle (Øystein Røger), the headmaster of her six-year-old son Armand’s school, but he refuses to explain the problem to her. When Elisabeth arrives in a flood of designer clothes, Jarle actually delegates the task to one of his junior teachers, the well-meaning but bland Sunna (Thea Lambrechts Vaulen). “When this is over, it’s over,” he tells her, but it sounds like wishful thinking.
According to Sunna, there was an incident between Armand and his best friend Jon, whose parents – Sarah (Ellen Dorrit Petersen) and Anders (Endre Hellestveit) – were waiting for Elisabeth to join them for a summit. Judging by the look on Sarah’s face, it seems serious, and it is. Elisabeth learns that Jon was found crying in the boys’ locker room by the caretaker. At home, Jon confided in his mother that Armand had held him down, groped him, and—the accusation Elisabeth finds hardest to swallow—threatened to anally rape him (“Where did he even get the idea?” she wonders). .
It quickly becomes clear that Sunna is overwhelmed in this situation, so Jarle joins the fight along with the school’s nurse, Asja (Vera Veljovic). “More people, huh?” snorts Elisabeth, who suspects that a Kangaroo court is currently in session.
In the absence of the two boys, it becomes quite clear that the situation is in full swing, but things get a little murkier when it turns out that Sarah is also Elisabeth’s sister-in-law. Up to this point, there are hints that Elisabeth is a fragile personality (“She’s been through a lot,” notes Jarle, trying to pour oil on troubled waters), but soon the family secret is revealed: Elisabeth’s codependent marriage has failed turbulent and abusive and ended tragically when Sarah’s brother killed himself. Sarah blames Elisabeth for this and refuses any sympathy, suggesting that as an actress Elisabeth has a talent for creating drama both in her life and on stage.
Will we ever get to the bottom of this? Yes and no. It’s been almost two hours Armand juggles more ideas than it can ultimately handle, which doesn’t prove particularly satisfying in the long run. His obvious predecessors include Roman Polanski Bloodbath or more recently that of İlker Çatak The teachers’ lounge, both films that deal exquisitely with truth and ambiguity. But when the ghost of Elisabeth’s husband comes into play, Armand becomes something else and subtly shifts the focus from Elisabeth to Sarah, who is, in her own special way, another piece of work and just as difficult.
In this respect, Tøndel has created a sprawling film that you can take in rather than eagerly pursue, and the opening section is particularly impressive in this regard: the school is alive, footsteps echoing in the halls and the smell of chalk dust hangs heavy in the air. Likewise, Reinsve shines as a striking antihero, playing a brittle, broken woman with a marshmallow interior. But at the end, Armand has branched out in so many directions that the ending leaves us hanging, not because it denies us the satisfaction of a proper ending, but because it raises enough questions about Elisabeth and Sarah to fill an entire other film.