When a musician's career implodes, she retreats home, takes a job at a high school and quietly pieces herself back together. A sweetly low-key Cannes gem about mental healing, second chances and the unexpected joy of starting over.
A slow, quiet and life-affirming late coming-of-age tale you don’t want to look away from.
Low Expectations 2026
After a whirlwind music career marked by endless touring, Maja (Marie Ulven) reaches rock bottom, passed out on the floor of yet another anonymous hotel room. The next time we see her, Maja has returned home to live with her mother Astrid (Tone Mostraum). She is working as a teaching assistant in her mother’s school, barely surviving the tedium of a job that demands little of her.
Nobody is harder on Maja than herself. The 29-year-old is full of self-loathing and the conviction that her once promising career is over. The students around Maja are more than a decade younger than her, caught up in social media, navigating relationships and planning for the future. The setting only encourages her view that time has passed her by.
Landsvik’s low-key approach eventually pays dividends as Maja’s journey from despair to the earliest glimmers of hope feels honestly earned. Marie Ulven is impressive in her screen debut, conveying the sense of someone merely going through the motions of life. There is an American indie vibe to the film and an affinity with the films of Kelly Reichardt (director of The Mastermind, NZIFF 2025), as Landsvik focuses on the little setbacks and victories of everyday life.
– Allan Hunter, Screen Daily