‘Brave New Love’ review: Provocative Danish drama navigates the emotional fallout from an extramarital affair | Reviews

Dir/scr: Maria Bäck. Denmark/Sweden/Greece. 2026. 107mins

A completely recent take on the infidelity trope in relationship dramas is demanding to find but Brave New Love, from Swedish-Danish director Maria Bäck (2020’s Psychosis In Stockholm), comes pretty close as it tries to chronicle the inner world of a woman who faces the unexpected end of her affair. After its premiere in Locarno competition, this provocative and fresh work, centred on the complexity of the female experience, now plays in Thessaloniki, and should be able to find niche theatrical engagements beyond the festival sphere. 

 Johansen relishes her role as a complicated creature who constantly tries to feel out her own emotions

The dark-haired, open-faced Kate (Kathrine Thorborg Johansen, The Quake) is a Danish hypnotherapist who married Orla (Simon Sears) when she was quite juvenile. Together, they have a daughter (Noemi Carbone Mannov) who is edging into adolescence; a lovely, light-filled apartment on the top floor of a big-city block; and Bobo, a blue parakeet they adore so much they celebrate its birthday with homemade cupcakes. The picture is complicated, however, by Andreas (Joachim Trier regular Anders Danielsen Lie), a charismatic Greek-Norwegian palaeontologist with whom Kate spends many a “hip-hop lesson,” as she tells Orla – though there are specific rules to their rapport that set it somewhat apart from your run-of-the-mill extramarital affair. 

Orla, a loving father and husband with his own insecurities he is unable to really communicate to anyone, doesn’t want to know about “certain things” that Kate does or feels. This is, of course, convenient for an adulterer but also complicated – how do you know exactly which things to keep to yourself and which to share if you know that there are certain things that your husband refuses to discuss?

Bäck’s underlying idea, of course, is to suggest that Kate behaves in a way that society thinks is unbecoming, and that she should keep those parts to herself. But this is easier said than done. What makes Brave New Love so engaging is that it makes apparent the loneliness that comes with not being able to share some emotional shocks with your regular support system — which, in the case of the film, is caused by Andreas announcing that he’s leaving Denmark for the fossil-rich island of Samos, where he grew up, effectively spelling the end of their relationship after three years.  

Some of the feature’s early going has a jocular energy and a certain melodramatic flair, with the film flirting with comic exaggeration. This is especially true in the scenes in which Kate — inexplicably in a blond wig — finds herself being introduced into a “circle of shame” of women at her local Protestant church, These scenes, with their magnified and more funny reactions, undermine the more recognisable reality of the domestic scenes. But they are also key in providing more direct access not only to the protagonist’s direct emotions, but also to society’s reaction to Kate’s very human feelings, as the other women in her circle react to her woes. 

This tonal muddying of the waters also prepares the viewer for the film’s second part, set on Samos, in which reality, myth and dreams start to bleed into one another more thoroughly. Towards the end, it’s not quite clear whether Kate is dreaming of an alternative future or whether somehow, miraculously, she has managed to do something most people can only dream of. Bäck seems to suggest that, like Kate, the film doesn’t really want to choose between the two options on the table; that that’s perhaps unusual but totally acceptable. 

Acting is of the highest standard, with Johansen relishing her role as a complicated creature who constantly tries to feel out her own emotions. And the fluid work of editor Julius Krebs Damsbo (known for having edited Icelandic director Hlynur Pálmason’s A White, White Day, Godland and The Love That Remains) is key in making sure the emotional complexities of the protagonist harmonises with the film’s formal ambitions; the way in which the editing fills in the backstory of Andreas and Kate’s relationship is especially noteworthy.