WHEN THE LIGHT BREAKS -- Poignant Exploration of Grief Deftly Balances Quiet and Loud Moments of Emotion

Review by Sean Boelman

Icelandic filmmaker Rúnar Rúnarsson’s feature debut premiered in 2011 at the Cannes Film Festival at the Directors’ Fortnight sidebar, and he returns to the Croisette for his fourth feature as part of the main festival’s Un Certain Regard competition. That movie, When the Light Breaks, is an accomplished, poignant, and meditative work exploring its emotions with poise and empathy.

The film follows a young woman who experiences the whole spectrum of emotions in a single day — from love to sorrow — as she faces an unexpected tragedy that leaves her unable to cope with her grief. Although we will avoid going into any more details, as it’s best to enjoy the movie with minimal expectations, it’s refreshing to see Rúnarsson take a story that easily could have been melodramatic and make something restrained out of it.

The film is incredibly brief, clocking in at a mere 75 minutes before credits. The narrative structure is very episodic; however, Rúnarsson refrains from the temptation of only showing the audience the excitement. Rúnarsson balances the heightened emotions with the mundanity in a way that feels grounded and realistic without ever losing interest.

Despite this short runtime he is working with, Rúnarsson attempts to explore a wide swath of themes. His success is inconsistent but certainly admirable in its ambition. When the Light Breaks thrives in its more universal moments — the sections showing the protagonist’s grief and how she grieves differently from the rest of her friends and loved ones. When it attempts to dive into other themes like identity, it struggles to address them with sufficient depth.

However, Rúnarsson does such an effective job of developing the characters that it is incredibly easy to get invested in the story. Rúnarsson wastes no time getting to work, starting with an opening scene that lets the audience see the central relationship in medias res. It’s an effectively disarming introduction that brilliantly sets the scene for the emotional rollercoaster to come.

Elín Hall’s performance in the lead role is excellent, thriving in its quietest moments. The most impressive aspect of her turn is how much emotion she is able to convey with so little. Although her delivery of the dialogue is strong, Hall is even more astounding in the nonverbal moments, like a scene in the final act where her sadness and anger are wonderfully exhibited through movement.

Visually, Rúnarsson’s film is quite strong. Much like the narrative, the visuals of When the Light Breaks oscillate between grand and quietly powerful. Rúnarsson knows how to make an image stick out and be impactful, doing so in some of the most pivotal scenes, but he can also make a meal out of the close-ups of characters going through intense emotional devastation.

When the Light Breaks is not without its flaws, but Rúnar Rúnarsson’s intention with the movie was clearly to make a viscerally emotional experience, and he certainly succeeds in doing so. Rúnarsson’s film brings uncommon and refreshing nuance to common themes, making it a worthy exploration of the complexity of grief.

When the Light Breaks is screening at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival.

​Rating: 4/5