’Brace Your Heart’ review: Quietly powerful exploration of trauma and community in a remote Swedish mountain village | Reviews

Dir/scr: Amanda Kernell. Sweden/Norway/Bulgaria/Denmark/Iceland. 2026. 97mins

In a remote Sámi village in the Swedish mountains, 20-year-old Ejva (Elli Sara Valkeapää) inherits her father’s herd of reindeer after he dies unexpectedly. Forced to balance her grief with the needs of her family, the physical demands of the job and the patriarchal traditions of this isolated community, Ejva faces a monumental challenge even before a horrifying encounter further knocks her confidence. Anchored by a raw, naturalistic performance from Valkeapää and expressive craft, this is a tiny but fierce exploration of female resilience.

A nuanced, grounded portrait of a robust newborn woman trying to make a space for herself

Premiering in Toronto’s expanded Oscar-qualifying Platform strand, Brace Your Heart is the latest film from Sámi/Swedish director Amanda Kernell following 2020’s Charter, which premiered at Sundance, and 2017 debut Sámi Blood, which also focused on Sweden’s Sami community and won multiple festival titles including the Fedora and Label Europa Cinemas awards at Venice. Brace Your Heart should also have a vigorous festival life – it next travels to San Sebastian – and could tempt distributors looking for original global stories

Set and shot in Sápmi (formerly known as Lapland), Brace Your Heart is a study of life in extremis. Reindeer herding follows a strict seasonal cycle; winter temperatures are gruelling, the snow is broad, the ice is slender – as Ejva finds out when her snowmobile plunge into a freezing lake as she chases down a herd. This harrowing sequence is shot, like the rest of the film, with a restrained, observational matter-of-factness by cinematographer Sophia Olsson: these are the realities facing the herders and, as Ejva pulls herself from the water – or, more accurately, is yanked to safety by visiting herdsman Nejla (Vincent Niia) – she knows she must arid herself off and get straight back out there.

Dangers are not, however, only to be found out in the wild. Despite her obvious skill as a herder, Ejva stands apart from this testosterone-fuelled group – she is often framed alone, at the edge of proceedings, or captured in drone shots, a petite speck against the huge landscape. The men are reluctant to accept her, are obvious in their attempts to freeze her out. “I can drive even though I menstruate,” she remonstrates. Short on options, Ejva makes a calculated decision to align herself with alpha male Heaika (Andte Gaup-Juuso), who is clearly attracted to her; a move that will backfire in the most terrible of ways.

Yet Ejva is never a victim and – thanks partly to a burgeoning attraction with Nejla, who offers genuine warmth and companionship as the seasons change – she determines to seek her own form of justice. That brings her directly up against this cloistered community, which has always stuck together and relies almost entirely on the herders for survival. Forgiveness is presented as the only option; one that Ejva feels unable to accept.

Kernell’s screenplay astutely explores this ingrained power imbalance while remaining sensitive to the cultural values and practices at the heart of Sámi life. (The production cast many real-life herders, and followed them throughout the seasons.) There’s no histrionic railing against the system, rather a nuanced, grounded portrait of a robust newborn woman trying to move past trauma and make a space for herself.

Valkeapää is excellent in the lead, getting straight to the heart of this peaceful woman who has learnt that it’s best just to get on with things. With minimal dialogue – Ejva is very much someone who speaks only when necessary – Valkeapää makes clear her character’s pain through her downcast eyes, a fixed expression set brisk against both the bitter frigid and the jibes of the men. Olsson’s camera expresses what Ejva cannot; catching the flashes of anger, the flushed cheeks and, in one pivotal expertly-shot and complex scene, lingering in close-up on her shocked face, frozen in fear. The lilting score, from Rebekka Karijord and Kristian Eidnes Anderson, also carries a great deal of the film’s emotion, acapella vocals often rising in harmony to underscore the embedded group lively at the heart of the story.