But their interactions are strained and artificial, up to and including Hanna's epic speech about the torture she endured during the war. It's meant to be moving, but it feels like writer-director Coixet wrote the movie around the speech, and as the catalyst for Hanna and Josef's romantic connection, it's more than a little discomforting (and not in the intended way).
Coixet is tackling genuinely difficult subjects, but she doesn't make her characters' emotional lives real enough to convince the audience she's doing anything more than solemn finger-wagging. Add the bizarre childlike voice-over at the beginning and end, and you've got a film that can't hold the weight of its own pretensions.