In this wonderful and sensual movie, we follow the young blond Hanna, who works in a large factory but is very much on her own and doesn’t seem happy. Sometimes we hear the litte girl in her talk to her. One day she has to come to the boss. He says that she does her work fine but her collegues are complaining that she sits alone in the canteen and doesn’t communicate. He advises her to go on holidays for a month. He shows her brochures with palmy beaches and swimming pools, but Hanna only responds with the question if she is obliged to do aerobics in the swimming pool.
We see her at home, in an empty room. While having dinner in a restaurant she hears a man talk on the phone about the immediate need for a nurse. She walks to his table and says she will do the job. The man brings her to an oil rig. The doctor speaks about the man who got wounded in an fire accident and lies in bed. He hears that she is from abroad but that is fine with him.
He brings her to the man, Josef, who is temporary blind and has severe burns in his face and over his body. The doctor says she can stay in Josefs room and leaves for the mainland. On the oil rig work has stopped since the accident and only a few men were still there. During meals Hanna is very silent, although the cook is very friendly with her. She sometimes listens in her cabin to the mobile phone with a message from a woman who likes reading a book Josef has given her called Letters o a Portuguese nun.
It is fascinating to see the relationship develop between Josef en Hanna. At first she doesn’t want to tell him anything, while he is very anxious to know what she looks like and what color is of her hair. Josef wants to call her Cora. Hanna agrees and tells him her hair is red instead of blond. one day Hanna tells him that she is deaf and sometimes turns her hearing aid off. She askes him about the woman who called him about The letters of a Portuguese nun and then they make a deal. Josef tells her about Cora. She was the wife of his friend, who got killed by the accident and he was in love with her. After his confession Hanna reveals her history.
Later on she asks the captain about the accident and informs the doctor on the mainland by phone that Josef is not getting better and that he has to be taken to a hospital. When they come to the mainland Hanna walks away without looking back and goes back to the factory but Josef of course cannot forget her.
It is wonderful to watch the way Coixet, who two year earlier warmed my heart with My life without me slowly reveals the truth in this movie. Sarah Polley plays very well the role of a traumatised youg woman and Tim Robbins is a patient who is vulnarable and cynical in the beginning, triyng to overshout himself by joking but ends up as a very warm person.
I did not read about the similarity with The English patient (1992), a novel by Michael Ondaatje released as a movie in 1996. The stories look like another. The English patient was also involved in a relationship with the wife of his friend and treated with love by a twenty year old nurse with the almost similar name Hana.
The movie is made on a great location and the music from Antony and the Johnsons and Tom Waits makes it even more intense.
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