Unmoored
In Caroline Ingvarsson’s slice of Scandi noir, Mirja Turestedt is utterly compelling as a Swedish TV presenter who confronts her husband about his past.
Image courtesy of Bulldog Film Distribution.
As a calling card for its director Caroline Ingvarsson, this is something special. She was born in Malmö in 1986 but gained experience in other countries including Australia where she attended Sydney Film School and made two short films. However, her subsequent work, centred mainly on short films and TV series, would be done back in Sweden whether as a director in her own right or as an assistant director. But it is only now with Unmoored that she has directed her first feature which is a close adaptation by Michèle Marshall of the 2013 novel by the popular Swedish writer Håkan Nesser. The story that it tells is one that belongs to the category of the psychological thriller yet what really excites about Unmoored is not the material itself but the distinction that Caroline Ingvarsson, aided by her photographer Michał Dymek, brings to it.
Unmoored is in fact a co-production and that is entirely appropriate since it starts and ends in Sweden while making England a key location and also incorporating scenes set in Poland. The central character is Maria Holinek (Mirja Turestedt) who when we meet her has been married for twenty-seven years to a writer. He is Magnus (Thomas W Gabrielsson) and he relies on her to check and edit his work before publication. Despite the pressure to do this, she has built a successful career for herself hosting a Swedish television programme in which she talks to people in the news. However, one such interview goes awry with a guest resenting her line of questioning and Maria is very ready to take a break. She favours a visit to England but Magnus, who is very domineering, persuades her that they should go to Marrakesh instead. However, they first drive to Poland in order to look in on a friend, Slobi (Andrzej Konopka), and while there Maria and Magnus have a major confrontation. We then see them on the shore where they discover an old bunker which they enter. It is clear that what happens inside is something very dramatic. But just what occurs is deliberately withheld from us: we simply see an anguished Maria running out and driving off accompanied only by her dog, Castor. In no time at all we find her reaching her destination, but far from being Morocco it is a remote house in England situated on Exmoor.
This location now plays a major part in the story. What we know for sure is that there is no sign of Magnus and that Maria on her own encounters a friendly neighbour, Mark (Kris Hitchen), a young widower with a small son, Jeremy (Piotr Seidel). We are also aware that Bergman (Sven Ahlström) who is her husband's agent is pressing her for news of the new book by Magnus for which a publishing contract has been signed. But for some reason Maria lies to Bergman about where she is and she is having troubled dreams. It is in that form and through straightforward flashback insertions that bit by bit we learn more about Magnus and eventually by degrees about what happened in the bunker. Early on there is an indication that a young woman (Anna Próchniak) has accused Magnus of sexual assault, but we only see and hear her story belatedly. As we take this fresh information into account, we are further encouraged to speculate on what exactly happened in the bunker to cause Maria to flee and what effect it has had on her. She starts to fear that somebody is tracking her down and her own mental state might be in question.
As this description suggests, Unmoored has a plot which sounds serviceable enough of its kind. But, in its film form at least, it is let down by two factors. One is that Magnus is shown to be so totally unsympathetic that, given that their marriage has been childless, it seems most improbable that Maria, hardly a weak woman, would have put up with him for years. The other is that the continual need to feed in flashbacks feels something of a cheat. To show Maria running from the bunker without any hint of what has occurred within is a jar in the continuity which comes across as a device adopted solely to enable the audience to be kept waiting for the eventual explanation. In the circumstances, you feel that you have been exploited and that makes you more readily alert to other elements in the story which seem rather too far-fetched.
In the circumstances, it would not be surprising if Unmoored were forgettable. But that would be to fail to allow for what Caroline Ingvarsson brings to it. That probably includes a special skill in encouraging actors since, while the cast here is an able one, the lead actress Mirja Turestedt is absolutely compelling in a way that suggests a deep rapport with her director. Even more striking is the way in which the film displays a masterful use of the wide screen and the ability to find images which while helpful to the flow of the narrative also make one aware that Ingvarsson has a truly individual eye. She possesses too a remarkable sense of atmosphere which enables location shooting to become expressive of the state of mind of a character and the vast open expanses of Exmoor seen here achieve this to perfection. Consequently, if the material that makes up Unmoored is decidedly less than first rate, that fact does not prevent one from seeing in Caroline Ingvarsson the promise of a major auteur. And there is one other incidental pleasure that I have not mentioned. Maria's dog, Castor, is a prominent feature here and I cannot recall ever seeing a dog more captivating – or perhaps I should say dogs because the credits reveal that this role is shared by Luna and Bella.
MANSEL STIMPSON
Cast: Mirja Turestedt, Thomas W. Gabrielsson, Kris Hitchen, Sven Ahlström, Anna Próchniak, Marta Zmuda Trzebiatowska, Andrzej Konopka, Piotr Seidel, Magnus Sundberg, Anna Terpiłowski and Luna and Bella.
Dir Caroline Ingvarsson, Pro Naomi Despres, Michèle Marshall and Mariusz Włodarski, Screenplay Michèle Marshall, from the novel The Living and the Dead in Winsford by Håkan Nesser, Ph Michał Dymek, Pro Des Paulina Korwin-Kochanowska and Urszula Korwin-Kochanowska, Ed Agata Cierniak, Music Martin Dirkov, Costumes Małgorzata Fudala.
Desmar PTE Ltd./Lava Films/Kibo Entertainment/Polish Film Trust-Bulldog Film Distribution.
93 mins. UK/Sweden/Poland/Singapore. 2023. UK Rel: 15 August 2025. Cert. 15.
