‘Poison’: Galway Review

Dir: Desiree Nosbusch. Luxembourg/Netherlands/Germany, UK. 2023. 88 mins

Desiree Nosbusch’s debut feature is a moving, sensitively handled adaptation of the Lot Vekemans play Gif, about an estranged couple unexpectedly reunited a decade after the tragedy that drove them apart. The material still feels innately theatrical but the nuanced, deeply-felt performances carry this emotionally charged two-hander. The class act-pairing of Trine Dyrholm and Tim Roth should attract arthouse audiences, and distributor interest is likely to follow festival screenings at Munich and Galway.

The class-act pairing of Trine Dyrholm and Tim Roth should attract arthouse audiences

Vekemans’ 2009 play focuses on the endless legacy of loss and grief, and she writes the screenplay here. Actor and television presenter-turned-director Nosbusch allows the material some room to breathe in its cinematic incarnation. Cinematographer Judith Kaufmann (Corsage, The Teacher’s Lounge etc) captures a chilly winter’s dawn in steel blue skies and sickly sepia city lights as Lucas (Roth) drives away from his waterfront home in Luxembourg. At the same time, his ex-wife Edith (Dyrholm) gathers some flowers, mounts her bike and leaves her cluttered cottage.

Their destination is a rural cemetery that serves as the last resting place for their son, Jacob. It is 10 years since they last saw each other. Lucas walked out one New Year’s Eve and Edith did nothing to stop him. Now, a leak of toxins at the cemetery means that coffins have to be exhumed and relocated, and they are obliged to meet to discuss the plans for their son’s coffin.

Nosbusch sets the scene economically, making the most of atmospheric locations in the riverside town of Vianden. There is a soggy, damp feeling to the landscape. The first shot is of toxic-looking liquid seeping out of the ground over cobbled stones. The poisons lurking beneath a calm surface could equally serve to describe the relationship between Lucas and Edith. Their initial encounter is polite and marked by small talk. An anguished-looking Roth is hunched and wary, he seems to come in fear of some assault on him. Dyrholm’s Ruth seems the more enthusiastic participant in this process, but also the one who finds it most difficult.

As time passes, the politeness fades and the gloves come off. There is an echo of Edward Albee’s play Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf? in the needling and provocation. Accusations are hurled, resentments voiced. We learn that they have taken very different paths in the decade or more since their son was knocked down and killed. Lucas escaped and sought reasons to keep going. Everything is still very raw for Edith, who has never moved on. 

Poison is mostly confined to one location, the cemetery, chapel, graves and waiting room providing varied spaces for the couple to clash or retreat into their private thoughts. Nosbusch eschews flashbacks and we never see Jacob, but she avoids making it feel oppressive or suffocating. The dialogue stings and cuts as Edith’s bitterness and cynicism clash with Lucas’s mild-mannered, philosophical  bewilderment. Edith views this encounter as a mixture of confessional and revenge. Why did he leave that night? How has he found the temerity or perhaps good fortune to move on?

The thrust of the conversation is compelling enough to distract from niggling questions, such as why nobody was at the cemetery to greet them and why there was no official appointment to attend. Instead, we are involved observers of the battleground between this pair. Nosbusch turns their unexpected encounter into a carefully balanced journey from resentment to reconciliation, varying the pace, shading the emotions and filling the brisk running time with revelations, moments of tenderness and acts of compassion.

Trine Dyrholm has the more bravura role as she unleashes the righteous fury that has built up in Edith, while Roth (also an executive producer) delicately underplays Lucas’s guilt and awkwardness. Their rapport and skilled performances convey the pain of past hurts, the rediscovery of a long lost fondness and the reaching of a forgiveness that might allow them both a way forward.