Dir. Dag Johan Haugerud. Norway 2025. 110mins

Dreams is the final part of Dag Johan Haugerud’s Sex/Dreams/Love trilogy, a series of dramas with different casts but interlinked themes. Set in Oslo, Dreams follows the lives of three generations of Norwegian women, a young girl, her mother and grandmother who are all experiencing a ‘coming of age’ in their respective ways, made all the more stimulating by their keen intellects.

Gracefully acted and visually engaging with its views of contemporary Olso and its surrounds Dreams also requires concentration but your efforts will be rewarded with plenty of food for thought.

Ella Øverbye plays teenage school student Johanna, experiencing infatuation and possible even love for the first time with her new language teacher (confusingly also called) Johanne (Selome Enmetu), a warm and wholesome Moroccan bohemian whose special talent is weaving colourful jumpers, very appropriate for the chilly Norwegian climate.

The young girl is drawn to her during classes and in the guileless throes of first love decides to visit her out of school hours at her plush apartment in the upmarket part of the city. Clearly sparks fly, at the least for the teenager, and in a ‘flash forward’ twelve months, when the ‘romance’ is clearly over, she decides to write about it in a diary, printing out a copy to share secretly with her grandmother Karin (Anne Marit Jacobsen), a literary agent who is herself at a creative and emotional crossroads.

Karin, slightly piqued by her granddaughter’s burgeoning talent, then decides to show the journal to her own daughter Kristin (Ane Dahl Torp) with a view to whether they should potentially publish the well-expressed account of loving feelings, after debating whether it is indeed based on reality or merely creative reverie. The film then proceeds to show what happened during the preceding year between the two putative lovers in a structural ploy that is quite confusing.

Johanna is clearly going through late adolescence and is naturally confused by own her feelings. She longs for the intoxicating buzz of lust and closeness she felt for the older woman, and finds herself in a relatable black hole of depression. But did anything actually happen? Clearly it did judging by a meeting between Johanne and Kristin who meet for coffee that offers intriguing insight.

Haugerud’s dialogue is just as wordy and engrossing as it was in Sex and also Love. A scene involving a moving staircase in the woods introduces an odd burst of magic realism depicting Karin’s dream about her own desire for physical reconnection. Cecilie Semec’s cinematography is full of vibrant light and warmth in a feature that moves along pleasurably leaving the audience feeling refreshed and replete but with some need for clarity. @MeredithTaylor

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