Fjord opens in a small, isolated town in Norway, beautiful and spacious, that hides some darker secrets within its citizens’ nature. Christian Mungiu’s screenplay takes away the classic narrative trick of giving us (a) character(s) who come off as role models that we can completely see ourselves in. Instead, we are brought into an incredibly uncomfortable situation where nobody is quite “right”, but we sympathize with the majority of them, even if we can’t look at one person and declare that we’d live our lives the way they do.

Sebastian Stan is giving his best-ever work, disappearing into a hardened and charisma-free character, and Renate Reinsve is sensational as the main family’s matriarch, never allowing us for a moment to forget why we feel for and care about these characters, even if we disagree with some of their actions. Mungiu embraces long takes rather than individual coverage to create sweeping intensity and elevate the stakes beyond the personal to the societal.

Over its epic 2.5-hour runtime, the film unravels a truth integral to understanding the structure of any society, from the beginning of time to our era today. It leaves you with no solutions or answers, no clear sides, yet it’ll get deeply under your skin and spark the most important and introspective conversations that the most profound and uncomfortable films should.