“Low Expectations”, interview with director Eivind Landsvik

Presented as a special screening at the 23rd edition of Alice nella Città 2026, Low Expectations by Eivind Landsvik follows Maja (Marie Ulven), a musician who falls apart at the height of her career and has to step away from her ambitions. Depressed and broke, she moves back home with her mother and works part-time at a local high school, where, far from the spotlight and wrapped in everyday kindness, she slowly finds her way back to life. Landsvik talks about his own long road to filmmaking, the scene in which Maja rediscovers creating for its own sake, why he chose a female artist as his protagonist, the phrases people repeat to comfort someone who is depressed, and his refusal to romanticize depression.

How long can you chase a dream?

Eivind Landsvik sees in the film’s idea of a second coming of age something of his own experience: “In my own case, trying to debut as a feature film director for so many years, a lot of the time I haven’t been happy, I haven’t had a good time, and the question that often popped into my mind was: how long are you going to chase this dream if it doesn’t make you happy?” Giving up, however, was never an option: “In my case it’s just that I can’t leave this thing alone. A rational thing would be to quit, and I think that’s what most people do. But to me, I can’t leave it alone. And now I’m very happy, because I made a film about it.”

Creating for the sake of creating

Towards the end of the film, Maja finds herself alone in a classroom, playing around with a school keyboard: “She’s left her coolness behind, she’s given up completely. There’s no facade left. And this is really a humbling point for her, because she realizes she’s nothing to these kids. They don’t care about who she is. And to me, that brings her back to creating for the sake of creating.” It is a risk the director knows well: “As a filmmaker, this is something you risk along the way, because in the beginning you just make stuff for yourself and you have this naive idea that you can do anything, and after a while you have to convince people, and then people react to what you’re making, and you can convince yourself: I have to do this, I have to do that. I think the film is also about that.”

A woman in the spotlight

For Eivind Landsvik, “art is such a good way of being empathetic. I think it’s a great way to study empathy”. Having had an experience not too far from Maja’s, he wondered how it would feel for someone far more exposed than him: “I was thinking: if I, as a man in my 30s, don’t have a lot of exposure and I feel this way, how would it feel for a female artist who has had way more exposure? People know how she looks, they know who she is, and she’s also so judged by her looks, and she’s getting older in a different way, because there are so many factors in which society is harder towards women than men. I think that’s the reason.”

The hardest thing in life

Some have criticized the film as clichéd, because everyone keeps telling Maja that things will be fine. Landsvik answers from experience: “Having gone through depressions myself, and one that was really bad, I promise you, the thing you hear on repeat from everyone is: it’s going to work out. You can call it a cliché, but trying to comfort someone is one of the hardest things in life.” When a colleague tells Maja that her depression will one day be just an anecdote for an interview, he explains, the line points to something else: “A lot of the time it’s not about the art. Especially for artists, you have to sell this story of: you had a tough time, and so on.” And he adds: “Now I just did the same thing myself, talking about depression.”

Not a pretty picture

In one scene Maja shows up unannounced at a teacher’s home and starts trashing the profession: “She’s trashing the occupation of a teacher, which is a very important profession, at the home of a teacher. She’s not trying to be mean, but she’s so unaware of her surroundings.” Landsvik wanted the audience to see all of her: “I tried also to make it not just like: oh, we have to feel pity for her all the time. You’re allowed to be annoyed by her. I am when I watch the film. She’s cruel to her mother sometimes, and she doesn’t mean to be, but to take depression seriously, you have to show all of it. It’s not a pretty picture.” Above all, he did not want to romanticize it: “It’s often romanticized and it’s easy to romanticize, especially in art. There is so much art about depression, and it’s really beautiful art, and it’s really beautiful music that you listen to when you’re sad. It is very romantic, but it needs to be handled with care.”

Plot