Much ado about nothing besides family drama? I was frustrated with the selfish characters and motivations. It was well made and Byrne was good, but the others were frustrating. Saw on Pluto.

The film deliberately avoids resolution, and while that's bound to frustrate a lot of people I think it's key to the movie's success. We are meant to experience all these conflicting viewpoints and perspectives not be given cheap life lessons. Also, I'm again reminded what a phenomenally underrated actor Gabriel Byrne is.

A drab film about grief that just falls flat. This movie tries to be one long metaphor for grief, but falls short of its goal with a monotonous and sometimes exceedingly boring and predictable narrative.

The pauses of pregnant silences and hused voiceovers are louder than bombs in this poignant dysfunctional family drama perpending the grieving processes of the patriarch and his two sons on the passing of the matriarch with unfulfilled closures.

This movie had a bit of potential but it tended to drag on a bit from time to time. The performances are adequate, even though the story is somewhat hazy. I did enjoy the musical score in this movie, but I am not sure that this movie is good enough to recommend.

Too confusing. I mean, why a movie needs to be so gloomy and dark (literally) and slow paced?

I couldn't make sense of the plot. I still don't know what it was about, really. A dysfunctional family, I suppose. There just wasn't enough development or continuity throughout to make sense of it, or to tell a coherent story. Too fragmented; waste of time, sadly.

A good film that occasionally loses its way within the narrative and lacks some of the elements of depth needed to really discuss such a subject.

A horribly boring drama with the worst acting I've seen in a while. The story is dull to begin with and the terrible performances make it a lot worse.

An ambitious effort with a big, talented cast but it struggles to keep hold of its ideas and direct them in a meaningful way. Grade: B-

Among the great family dramas, Joachim Trier's "Louder Than Bombs" (2016) is concerned with grief and how it travels through the intricacies of memory, perception, and sense of self. In the film, three men mourn the loss of Isabelle Reed (Isabelle Huppert), a conflict photographer who tragically died in a car accident during her professional prime. Those mourning are her husband, Gene (a deeply sympathetic Gabriel Byrne), and their two sons, Jonah (Jesse Eisenberg) and Conrad (Devin Druid). It's been a few years since her unexpected demise, but old wounds are reopened when an exhibition honoring her body of work opens to the general public. Having had tried to move past the effects Isabelle's death has had on them in the years following, the family is suddenly forced to come to terms with how their lives have been shaped in the face of such a major loss. Patriarch Gene has begun to pursue a romance with a schoolteacher (Amy Ryan), but has since struggled to emotionally connect with Conrad, who was twelve when his mother passed and has grown accustomed to coping with his maternal loss by losing himself in vapid entertainment. Jonah, in college at the time of the tragedy, has become a husband and a father, but has recently started wondering what his life might have looked like if he still had a mother's shoulder to cry on and if he listened to his intuition rather than the sounds of the decisions he thought were the right ones to make. The quandaries of these characters, so comprehensively and so hypersensitively co-written and directed by Trier, are given hefty emotional value that makes every obstacle all the more explosive. So thoroughly explored are they that we near instantaneously feel what they feel with overwhelming empathy - Trier, along with his actors, understand the people grieving on the screen and make them palpably damaged rather than passively so. Trier's unafraid of shifting perspectives with uncomfortable depth, pawing through every one of the vulnerabilities wreaking havoc on the well-beings of these individuals with the discipline of a builder hammering away seemingly unbreakable drywall. But the attribute that makes "Louder Than Bombs" so powerful is the way it utilizes the art of the flashback and the cinematic crafting of a memory. Flashbacks and memories don't much give us background as much as they highlight how the film's focal characters align themselves with the person they've lost, and how their impressions have metamorphosed over the years and how their respective notions have seeped into their everyday lives. Most stirring is the seeing of how Isabelle's death has affected Conrad, young enough at the time of her passing to still have not moved past the constraints of idolization that characterizes the majority of mother/son bonds. Gene and (for the most part) Jonah remember Isabelle as the woman she was - the fragile lionheart who adored her work and loved her family but could never quite adjust herself to the domesticity awaiting her back home - but Jonah's recollections are distinctly rose-colored. And those recollections have turned him into an introspective being plagued by incessant longing. He's simply a boy who misses his mother, and watching him come to terms with himself and his family life is the most crushing thing about "Louder Than Bombs." Druid gives an appropriately sensitive cum idiosyncratic performance that never dips into the trappings of one-dimensional angst. And the film's fragmented, pensive nature and lack of resolute conclusion only heightens its emotional significance - Trier recognizes that these characters will perhaps never stop putting Isabelle at the forefront of their every thought and doesn't try to portray an end to the personal demons that haunt them. Because "Louder Than Bombs" is a slice of life that spotlessly defines what it's like to mourn and what it's like to recover from tragedy - and that's an accomplishment worth celebrating.

A multi-perspective story of a family dealing with their famous photographer mother's suicide. It's a portrait of grief and loss that varies between insightful and melodramatic. Most actions aren't explained and can be attributed to loss. You'll have a hard time caring about most of the characters who can be difficult to like, and the movie smacks of novelistic ambition. There are some poignant moments and strong performances, but it all feels weighed down under overwrought maudlin indulgences in dreary feelings.

Emotionally complex portrayal of a family suffering from loss. Trier is somehow able to intricately navigate these very complex characters across the span of several days, showing you glimpses of each character's past and fragments of their relationship with someone who had a profound impact on their lives. It's touching without being overwrought, and intense without being self-serious. Its obvious the director feels very much for his subject, and there are some very truthful moments that boldly do not play out for dramatic effect, rather minutia of daily experiences shown through a thoughtful lens.

Hiding in a dark drama vehicle from Norway, Jesse Eisenberg delivers a staggering performance that tops his ridiculously prolific, yet young career. Sparring with heavyweights Gabriel Byrne and Isabelle Huppert (and excellent newcomer David Druid) , Eisenberg stealthily steals scenes as a multi-facetted, complicated character, wading through classic family tumult: tragedy and birth. Broken families need fixing, but sometimes there are too many pieces to pick up, and are often broken further during clean up. Nothing new here, but told in a clever manner, unravelling a complicated story that focuses back on the three male characters, each dealing with a major life transition. "Louder Than Bombs" is jarring in it's honesty, capturing the nuance of first world, present day generational conflicts, with a third world backdrop. An important film that lives long after a screening. - hipCRANK

Fantastic. An overlooked gem.

An upcoming exhibition celebrating photographer Isabelle Reed (Isabelle Huppert) three years after her untimely death in a horrible car accident, brings her eldest son Jonah (Jesse Eisenberg) back to the family house - forcing him to spend more time with his father Gene (Gabriel Byrne) and withdrawn younger brother Conrad (Devin Druid) than he has in years. With the three of them under the same roof, Gene tries desperately to connect with his two sons, but they struggle to reconcile their feelings about the woman they remember so differently... Louder Than Bombs has received generally positive reviews from critics. Rotten Tomatoes consensus was: "Louder Than Bombs finds director Joachim Trier using a capable cast in pursuit of some lofty dramatic goals, even if his ambitions occasionally evade his grasp." Ignatiy Vishnevetsky of The A.V. Club described the film as "the kind of multi-faceted, ambitious, incompletely resolved American drama that American filmmakers never seem to get around to making: novelistic in subject and structure, but completely cinematic in the way it expresses itself, even if Trier's camera style never rises to the sophistication of his influences." Norwegian filmmaker Joachim Trier´s English-language film debut "Louder Than Bombs" is an insightful drama focused on loss, family, love, depression, hate and the struggle to find yourself in a time of confusion. The acting is of high quality, but I simply can´t help the fact that I can´t stand Jesse Eisenberg and his narrow acting skills as he portrays any character he does the exact same way. A bit like Matt Damon.. This becomes a problem in "Louder Than Bombs" as Eisenberg has a bearing role. I felt as well that Trier can´t really keep the storyline together in a satisfying way when jumping between the present and the past. He uses a lot of the usual pretensious indie film ways such as floaty scenes with less dialogue and close ups. I loved Trier´s "Oslo August 31st", but he doesn´t reach the same height with "Louder Than Bombs" in my opinion. It just didn´t evoke those strong feelings I was hoping for despite the fact that the story is tragic and emotional. Part of the problem is that non of the characters are very likeable either. Maybe the next film from Trier will reach what I know he can reach.

Me recuerda el cine de Noah Baumbach, estupendas actuaciones en especial de Isabelle Huppert.

Louder Than Bombs tenderly explores themes of grief, loss, and moving on with incredible characters and a magical-realism touch.

This movie is made of many incredibly shot and edited sequence, and even if they don't fully cohere to a satisfying theme or story, they're incredible in their own right.

Joachim Trier is one of the top Norwegian film makers of newer times. "Reprise" and "Oslo 31. August" are great flicks, this is his first English spoken feature. A fragile family is dealing with the lady of the house's death. She was a known war photographer, before she died in a pretty unexplanied car accident - there are some theories, though. The two young men of the family is coping in different ways, the elder one seem to give the youngest some advice, while the dad seem to struggle a bit to keep them close, especially the youngest one. Partly multinarrative, but I feel that the youngest boy is the main guy here. The solid cast delivers and it looks great. It lack some originality and true emotions, so I was let quite disappointed. The swell feature of a great "Com Truice" song is the highlight for me. OK effort, but nothing else. 6 out of 10 pee streams.