Dir: Itonje Soimer Guttormsen | Cast: Renate Reinsve, Helene Bjorneby, Numan Acar | 117’
Reviewed by Meredith Taylor
The family reunion sub-genre is reworked with a slight sibling rivalry twist this time and a comedy angle. Butterfly sees two half-sisters dealing with parental death in Itonje Soimer Guttormsen’s second feature, an entertaining three-hander.
After a surreal opening sequence, Butterfly eventually finds its feet in the Gran Canaria where these two women couldn’t be more different. Fresh from her role in Sentimental Value, Renate Reinsve’s Lily, has put away her modelling clothes, and settled into Hamburg’s edgy art scene Diana (Helene Bjorneby) is a down to earth teacher in small-town Norway.
Twenty seven years have elapsed since their childhood days on the island, and returning there after the news of their mother’s’ death the two are hoping for some nostalgic comfort. Fat chance. That drink served in a pineapple in their local bar has long gone, leading them briskly to a rude awakening and a somewhat altered state of affairs, particularly when some startling revelations surface about their mother, Vera Nielsen, who was known on the island as the “Butterfly Woman”.
Not only had she set up a bizarre wellness retreat, but worse, that it had gone bust with money complications. And that her surviving partner is living some kind of weird alternative existence, along with many of the locals, and even Lily herself who starts to loose lost contact with reality – but what is reality on an island in the Atlantic sea? “My mother once asked me if I wanted a friend in Jesus, and I replied that there was a rather big age difference between us”. So no, she didn’t have a religious awakening
Renate Reinsve once again shines as the wacky one of the duo but Bjorneby is a real revelation as the more grounded sibling as she grapples with her mother’s much younger partner Chato and his antics, and her sister’s increasingly unhinged state of mind. Although the film touches on serious issues such a mental illness: ADHD, addiction and bipolar, it does so with a comic lightness of touch that feels appropriate. A really entertaining watch that takes the road less travelled in An amusing way.
BIG SCREEN COMPETITION | 30th January 2026 at 14.45