The apex of Norwegian cinema. The woes of twenty-somethings have become part of the language of contemporary cinema, yet debutant Landsvik scrambles those familiar letters into a refreshingly odd vocabulary. What does it mean to be young and talented in an age when boredom is no longer permissible, and there’s a pill or a service for every problem?

Things might not be as simple as they seem. A cult following online, perhaps earned a little too soon. At the height of her music career, Maja has a breakdown. Under mounting internal pressure, she opts for a radical lifestyle change, moving back in with her mother in the hope of starting over. Maja works as a teaching assistant, supervising students during exams, running into old lovers, and listening to musings on the “greatest film of all time,” Crash (1996). She feels stuck, feeling she has let everyone down – including herself.

Having begun his career directing music videos and short films, Landsvik imbues his feature debut – successfully premiered in the Directors’ Fortnight at Cannes – with the burnout blues and a sharp bite of criticism. The film stars Norwegian musician Marie Ulven, known as Girl in Red, hailed as one of the most exciting guitar-playing singer-songwriters of her generation. Tonally harmonising with fellow Norwegian Joachim Trier and his Oslo trilogy, Landsvik blends sweet irony, bitterness and the effervescent energy of a dissolving vitamin C tablet. No matter what phases of life we go through alongside Maja, one question remains: is the ability to simply be still for a moment perhaps more important than moving forward?