Thessaloniki International Film Festival – Kjærlighet – Only Love

The film LOVE ONLY is a standalone part of the Oslo Trilogy, which also includes SEX – What Men Talk About and DREAMS (Golden Bear, Berlin Film Festival). It is the trilogy’s most emotional installment, focusing on love for others and for oneself, the importance of empathy, and our need for freedom.

We find ourselves in a bright, summery Oslo, where we meet Marianne, a pragmatic doctor, and Tore, a compassionate nurse, both of whom avoid conventional relationships. One night, after a blind date, Marianne happens to meet Tore on a ferry. Tore, who often spends his evenings seeking casual encounters with men, shares his positive experiences with her. Inspired by his perspective on relationships, Marianne decides to explore whether spontaneous, short-lived connections might also work for her. Meanwhile, Oslo is preparing to celebrate its centennial.

The acclaimed Dag Johan Haugerud, a consistent anatomist of the complexity of human relationships (I Belong, Beware of Children), delivers here an incisive, deeply moving portrait, woven through dialogues of rare authenticity of the strange paths and ways through which we relate to one another while seeking humanity’s “holy grail”: love. A love that some associate with the loss of autonomy and Haugerud wonders how true that really is. The answer can only be: LOVE ONLY.