Emily Atef’s steady and stirring film More Than Ever opens with the protagonist, Hélène (Vicky Krieps), staring at herself in a mirror. Who does she see? A woman thinned out by an onerous illness? A patient exasperated by the insistent optimism of her doctors? A wife suffocating under the cautious care of her husband? An image of the person she once was? That question and its inspired speculations firmly rooted themselves in my mind, a mark of this film’s potency.
More Than Ever’s power is understated and controlled. It’s a film about life despite death, and a woman desperate to control her fate. This isn’t the first time Atef has ventured into this territory. In her debut feature, Molly’s Way, the Franco-Persian director turned one woman’s impractical search for a man with whom she had a one-night stand into a journey of self-discovery. In 3 Days in Quiberon, Atef took inspiration from reality — dramatizing the tumultuous life of German-Austrian actress Romy Schneider. Now with More Than Ever, Atef considers how death can simultaneously haunt and reenergize a life.
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More Than Ever
Hélène remembers who she used to be, but she is not sure of who she is now. That opening sequence, where the 33-year-old woman stares into the mirror, signifies her rocky relationship to herself. It starts off quiet and then quickly bursts with emotion as Hélène screams into an empty apartment. An abrupt cut brings us to Hélène’s husband Mathieu (the late Gaspard Ulliel) trying to convince his wife to come to a dinner party with their friends. She reluctantly acquiesces.
The dinner party reveals the depth of Hélène’s discomfort. Her friends have not adjusted to the fact of her illness — idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis deteriorates her lung capacity — and that manifests in a humiliating skittishness and avoidance. The group is happy to see Hélène, but they curiously do not ask about her. They stick to banality, wondering if she plans to return to work (of course not) and insisting she has a drink (water is just fine.) DP Yves Cape’s camera stays close to Krieps’ face during these moments, mapping her penetrating somber expressions.
A lie told at the table tips Hélène over the edge, prompting her to confront her friends’ strange behavior and storm out of the party. Mathieu follows closely behind, poorly masking his annoyance. The dinner party proves to be a turning point. More acutely aware of her isolation, Hélène turns to Google for answers. She finds solace in a blog maintained by a man diagnosed with cancer. He only posts pictures — of a hospital bed, the countryside, a body of water.
Hélène initiates a correspondence that keeps her company through her monotonous days. Meanwhile, Mathieu feels his wife slipping farther away from him. He struggles to connect with her melancholy. A visit to the doctor’s office, where Hélène is told she is eligible for a lung transplant, leaves the couple feeling oppositely: Hélène morose, and Mathieu enthusiastic.
That chasm, like the dinner party, proves to be another turning point for Hélène. She decides to take a solo trip to Norway, news that makes Mathieu feel rejected and scared. It is chilling to watch Ulliel, who died in January 2022, play a partner navigating the contours of an impending grief. His performance is restrained and somber, a sign of his character’s hushed acceptance of the inevitable.
Silence is Atef’s strength. The director impressively uses quiet moments to great effect, often telling us more than her workaday screenplay (co-written with Lars Hubrich). Hélène and Mathieu spend much of their time together — increased since Hélène’s diagnoses — without speaking. Their bodies and facial expressions do most of the talking: Emotional distance is measured by the space between their bodies while lying in bed or walking down the street. Renewed intimacy can be felt as they sit across from each other, wordlessly sharing slices of fruit.
Hélène in Norway is more energized. (I’d be remiss not to mention the beautiful sequence chronicling her train ride from Bordeaux to Norway, which takes advantage of stunning countryside.) She meets the mysterious blogger man, Mister Bent (Bjørn Floberg), who is not like anything she had imagined — older, scruffier and quieter. The bulk of their communication involves Hélène’s unprompted confessions and questions. Bent is a thinly sketched character whose sole purpose is to guide Hélène’s self-discovery, which eventually begins to feel too one-note for such an otherwise considerate project.
Mathieu ultimately joins Hélène in Norway, a trip that doubles as therapy for the couple. Here, in the middle of nowhere, the two confront difficult questions and unuttered thoughts move into the open. This third act ends up being the strongest section of More Than Ever: Atef stages unfussy scenes that pack maximum emotion, and Hélène seems one step closer to knowing herself.
