Games of Love and Loneliness (The Serious Game)

Summer 1897. Arvid, a young journalist, and Lydia, the daughter of a painter, fall deeply in love. But Arvid comes from a lower social class, and the two lovers are forced to enter into marriages of convenience. Ten years later, they find their way back to each other … Yet the world has changed, and Lydia finds herself torn between her hard-won freedom and her childhood sweetheart. (lf)

‘The character of the young Lydia embodies all the contradictions faced by women in the late 19th century – contradictions that remain relevant to this day. Under the guise of a classic historical drama, Anja Breien traces a woman’s development over a period of fifteen years: from paralysing shyness through youthful passion to her relative emancipation following an unhappy marriage. She skilfully adapts Hjalmar Söderberg’s novel ‹The Serious Game› into a magnificent portrait.” (Marceau Aidan, Jeune Cinéma, May 2004)