Renate Reinsve is the actor who takes on the role of a 20 something heroine, Julie. And where does the title come from? Surely it can’t apply to Julie herself; she admittedly dumps two men in the course of the film, cheating on and lying to the second, but we don’t for a moment think of her as anything other than vulnerable, flawed and human. Like anyone else in their 20s, she is terrified of the terrible irreversibility of life choices.

Maybe the title applies to her formidable second boyfriend, the brilliant but haughty comic-book artist called Aksel (Anders Danielsen Lie) who is renowned for an aggressively graphic novel series which will soon get him into trouble with a new generation of feminists.

Julie starts out hilariously unsure about what she wants to do with her life. She is initially a medical student but then, with wide-eyed certainty, tells her long-suffering mum she wants to change course to psychology and then decides she wants to go into photography. She begins a relationship with a gorgeous young guy that she, with magnificent unprofessionalism, starts snogging in the middle of a photo shoot and then leaves him at a party for the smoulderingly fascinating Aksel.

But as her 20s progress, she finds that Aksel is becoming more and more famous while she is still working in a bookshop. Things come to a crunch when she leaves Aksel’s latest launch party early and has an intense encounter with a guy called Eivind (Herbert Nordrum) who also works in a shop.

There are two sensational set-pieces: one when she finally plucks up the courage to tell Aksel she is leaving him, and the whole world goes into freeze-frame while she runs through the Oslo streets to find Eivind and kiss him. The second comes when she takes shrooms with Eivind and his friends, an absolute showstopper of a drug-hallucination dream sequence in which Julie finally confronts her deadbeat estranged dad.

This film is sweet and gentle and funny, in ways that are undoubtedly conventional but also very real. It’s the kind of film we’ve all seen done so badly that it’s an unexpected treat to see it done well and to realise that its themes are very important: who do you fall in love with? Who is “the one”? When do you realise that you are just settling? Reinsve’s performance is just so good. A star is born.

– Compilation