‘Loveable’: The Woman Who Scares Men

The newly released Norwegian film Loveable, now on streaming, left me with deeply conflicted feelings—both love and hate. On a personal level, the bluntest summary I can give is this: The female director Lilja Ingolfsdottir has succeeded in crafting a female protagonist that embodies the very kind of woman men fear most—a character who’s both painfully real and thoroughly exasperating. That’s what makes the film so compelling, and so infuriating. Yes, it managed to dredge up memories of some very bad relationships. Of course, for the sake of emotional safety—and to avoid stirring up unpleasant personal history—it’s best to frame any experience-based commentary with “a friend of mine.”

The film unfolds with remarkable narrative economy, using just a handful of key life moments to swiftly lay out the backstory: Maria’s failed first marriage, her encounter with Sigmund, and the beginning of her second marriage with him. By the 10-minute mark, we’ve already arrived at the crucial seven-year itch. Sigmund, a musician constantly away on business trips, returns home, puts down his instrument, hangs up his scarf and coat, and begins explaining what he’s been up to:

“I bought some wool underwear for the kids. I hope the sizes are right. And you? How are you doing?”

“You kept saying you’d come home, but you never did. That’s really not okay.” Maria, wrapped in a token hug, begins her gentle complaints.

“I know. My schedule got delayed. I couldn’t help it. I’ve had to spend more time syncing with the team.” As Sigmund offers a casual update about his work, Maria turns her back to him—her displeasure clearly visible even without words. She then mentions that one of their kids had gotten into a bit of trouble at school.

In the next scene, set by the bathroom basin, Maria’s tone shifts from playfulness to discontent: “You’re so mean, leaving me alone at home like that.”

What at first seems like just another slice of domestic life gradually escalates into a full-blown, irreconcilable conflict as they begin raising their voices.

This scene—Sigmund’s return home—reappears several times later in the film during Maria’s sessions at an emotional management course. Each time, the flashback zooms in closer, isolating key details of their interactions. Like Maria, we as viewers begin to ask: What exactly did she say wrong? What gestures and expressions of hers pushed him past the point of no return? What, precisely, made their intimacy unravel beyond repair?

From the couple’s initial attempt to save their marriage through couples therapy to Maria later following various people’s advice and attending emotional management classes alone, it all seems—at first glance—that even the film’s female director believes the root of the problem lies with Maria. To balance things out, Ingolfsdottir even inserts a best-friend character—the kind of fiercely loyal confidant who’ll stand by your side no matter what throughout your crumbling relationship.

Still, the director provides Maria with a well-rounded character setup. She’s a young mother with both ambition and professional capability, whose broader life possibilities have been delayed, even derailed, by the heavy demands of raising children. Like Sigmund, her ex-husband was also a man who was always out working and rarely home.

Viewed this way, what wrecked Maria’s marriages—and perhaps her life—is that age-old expectation placed on women: the duty to bear and raise children. Even in the most gender-equal, progressive Scandinavia, this still holds true. And yet, despite all she has given and sacrificed, what she gets in return is her eldest daughter’s resentment and reproach. So yes, there are systemic reasons behind it all—but Maria must also bear some responsibility. At the very least, from the casting to the character design, the director presents us with a woman who isn’t easy to like and seems stubbornly fixated on being right about everything.

Of course, as a male viewer, I was inevitably swayed by the director’s storytelling and visual cues and drawn into the idea that Maria is to blame. I wonder what female viewers might take away from the film—whether they’d feel a strong sense of empathy toward Maria instead.

In any case, Loveable reminded me of another, more widely recognized Norwegian film from a few years back that also deals with the dilemmas faced by contemporary women: The Worst Person in the World. And honestly, Maria might just be worse than the worst person in the world.

The day after watching Loveable, which took home the Special Jury Prize at last year’s Karlovy Vary Film Festival, I ended up watching another work with a similarly tormented female lead: The Deep Blue Sea by the UK’s National Theatre Live. Long before this stage production, the story had already been adapted into two film versions—one starring Vivien Leigh, and the other Rachel Weisz. They played Hester Collyer, a woman who turns on the gas and downs a bottle of aspirin in her flat just because her boyfriend forgot her birthday.

Compared to Norway’s Maria, Britain’s Hester is clearly the kind of woman a man would be terrified of and seek to escape from as quickly as possible.

Encountering two such stubborn and unyielding women on screen back to back left me both shaken and uneasy. Inevitably, it brought to mind stories from some of my “friends”—and the women in those stories who’d erupt in rage the moment a conversation went sideways. Some of these women weren’t even in romantic relationships with my “friends.” Instead, they were just ordinary friends who felt compelled to unleash their emotions in full force whenever something upset them.

Once, I even mustered the courage to ask them: “Does it really have to be all-or-nothing every time? Can’t you just let things and people go? Can’t you give love some breathing room?” After all, there’s an old saying: “If you take things too seriously, you lose.” If we don’t take relationships too seriously, maybe we’ll miss out on the most euphoric emotional highs—but at least we won’t end up at war with each other, right?

One of my “friends” paused for a moment, then replied with conviction: “You’re not me, so you’ll never understand. If I don’t let my emotions and anger out, it’ll only get worse.”

Fair enough. I understand, but I know I’ll never truly empathize. Whether in films or in real life, the outlook seems grim: the end of love doesn’t come with marriage. It comes at the moment when two people try to start a life together.