2.5/5

Review by John P. Harvey.

As a young man, Elias (Viktor Hjelmsø) meets and falls in love with Anita (Anna Søgaard Frandsen).  Their career paths seem divergent — he wishes to be a climate scientist and a submersible pilot; she aspires to a career as a singer — but they can make it work.  When he must choose, though, between his career and having a family, he chooses the career.  The world has experienced a potentially cataclysmic change in the opening of a sea vent, and he may have an opportunity to participate in closing it.

More than a decade later, when that opportunity arises and he faces the sea vent itself, Elias (played by Simon Sears) experiences flashes of what life could have been had he chosen family life with Anita (played by Nanna Øland Fabricius).

That is the promising setup for this somewhat SF – somewhat drama – somewhat romance – somewhat mystery, and further promises appear in the course of events, with many intriguing scenes seeming to tie the events together.  And perhaps they do tie together; but the tale leaves a great many ambiguities unresolved, with no way to tie down a coherent explanation as to what really occurs, let alone how or why.

The film’s aesthetic varies with the landscape and seascape, the underwater scenes central to its plot resonating with the more groundbreaking effects in 2001: A Space Oddysey.  And the characters work well enough (even if the younger and older Anitas’ actors are somewhat mismatched!) in conveying their personal passions and the tensions between them.  It falters for me in the causal connections between events, and that hiatus leaves much unexplained and seemingly inexplicable; but others may perceive more meaning in the tale than I did.  It is, at least, not uninteresting, and may leave you wondering what you overlooked.