Renate Reinsve is one of those actresses who had a stunning breakout performance in The Worst Person In The World and has been underutilized since then, but the film industry doesn’t know what to do with her. I was glad to see her in A Different Man but thought she deserved better especially compared to Sebastian Stan and Adam Pearson. Reinsve’s tremendous performance is the highlight of Armand, which recently opened in theaters in Norway’s short-listed submission for the Best International Feature Film category at the 97th Academy Awards. The story is about Elisabeth (Reinsve), who is summoned to a parent-teacher conference to confront scandalous allegations that begin a chain of events of sordid accusations among both parents of her students and the faculty she works alongside.
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A DGA Outstanding Directing: First-Time Feature Film nominee (my favorite award during Oscar season), Halfdan Ullmann Tøndel knows how to increase the tension through dialogue and balance different genres of drama, thriller, and the surreal during Armand. His careful craft behind the camera elevates the melodramatic material with twists and turns. It also won the Caméra d’Or for best first feature at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival. His directorial prowess excels in the ambitious third act, even if a few sequences didn’t always work for me. Those odd final moments symbolize what happens to the character’s emotional and mental well-being—performance art of what happens to them.
Overall, Armand has a convoluted and detailed plot, both vague and complex, that unravels for some characters and boils over. There are a lot of revelations among the characters and cast of parents, with a few moments unbelievable, even in the crazy world we now live in. An awkward and playful dance between two characters stuck with me for several weeks after watching it. But nothing as much as Reinsve’s laughing so hard she cries that it will become a GIF and poised to be a viral social media clip. Let’s hope that garners her additional attention to be cast in something worthy of her talent. Directors, take note!
Armand is now playing in theaters.
