‘The Hypnosis’: Karlovy Vary Review

Dir. Ernst de Geer. Sweden/Norway/France. 2023. 98mins

A sharply discomfiting little social comedy from Sweden, The Hypnosis is The Square scaled back to where the cringe takes place in rooms we know, between people and situations we can recognise. Constantly walking a tightrope to keep it real, first-time director Ernst de Geer, working from the screenplay he wrote with Mads Stegger, shows true flair in a film which won two prizes at Karlovy Vary and seems a perfect fit for further festival exposure. Every awkward moment, every squirmy social stab, is framed against the background of ordinary expectations and tiny, scaleable rebellions.

Marks out de Geer as a name to watch 

Norwegian actor Herbert Nordrum, who took the acting prize at Karlovy Vary, is known to international audiences through The Worst Woman In The World. Here he plays Andre, boyfriend and business partner of Vera (the excellent Swedish newcomer Asta Kamma August), a seemingly quiet woman – but whether that’s by nature or lack of nuture is what de Geer sets out to examine. The Hypnosis relishes awkwardness and embarrassment and is happiest when audiences are at their most uncomfortable, but even the small, throwaway lines resonate (the pretentious difference between a French clown and common or garden clowns, for example). 

Vera and Andre have created an app which is supposed to improve women’s reproductive health in under-developed parts of the world, but it all comes across as a little smug even before the narrative wheels start spinning. They have won the opportunity to sell their business, called Epione, to investors at a highly sought-after pitching session: the start of the film sees Vera rehearse the personal story which supposedly inspired the app, although story is what it turns out to be. Immediately she’s talking about her period and heavy bleeding, in English, and uncomfortably contriving to make herself sound the best to anonymous financiers for gain. Andre is insecure and, clearly, much worse at the ‘game’ than Vera. He’s happy to let, or even make, Vera doubt herself. Her mother, meanwhile, is a piece of work.

Unconfident and unsure, Vera decides to visit a hypnotherapist to try sort out her addiction to smoking in advance of the pitching session, which is appropriately called Shake Up. Is smoking her problem, though? What transpires is a low-level dissolve of Vera’s social inhibitions, but not in a way that’s jubilant or freeing. Wanting to dance in the car or tackle her mother’s subtle bullying soon moves into behaviour which is inappropriate and embarrassing, while Andre tries to sideline her in ways which are also particularly unpalatable.

The Hypnosis can lag, certainly, before it decides it is really about Vera and Andre’s relationship and not the points scored by personal coaching, by Lotte (Andrea Edwards), a pretentious workshop guru Julien (David Fukamachi Regnfors), app developers, cringey first-world social consciousness or feminist awakenings. There are a lot of big ideas in here being treated on a very scale, so the scenes around the couple’s hotel stay and social mixer before the Shake Up pitch can feel extended. Still, moments where Vera quietly destroys Andre’s tiny self-aggrandising lies are worth hanging around for. A terrific ending saves the day, and is perfectly fitting for the scale and ambition of de Geer’s debut.

Working with DoP Johann Bjerstedt, de Geer makes a virtue of confined hotel lounges, bars and conference rooms: it’s all cleanly-shot, without pretentiousness, and hits the mark modestly on a technical level. There’s more than one level at work in The Hypnosis, however, marking out de Geer as a name to watch – and welcome – going forward.