Armand

by Mike McGranaghan

Before it goes off the rails in its second hour, Armand is a gripping drama about Elisabeth (Renate Reinsve), a single mother whose 6-year-old son has been accused of sexually inappropriate behavior toward another student. She’s called in to meet with Sunna (Thea Lambrechts Vaulen), a relatively inexperienced teacher the principal has cowardly asked to address the issue because she’s “diplomatic.” The other boy’s parents, Sarah (Ellen Dorrit Petersen) and Anders (Endre Hellestveit), are also in attendance for the meeting.

Tensions quickly arise. Elisabeth doesn’t think Armand could possibly have done what he’s accused of. The school staff thinks it’s definitely possible because he’s gotten into trouble multiple times before. Writer/director Halfdan Ullman Tøndel starts to dig into the moral quandaries presented by the situation. As Elisabeth argues, how would a 6-year-old know to behave in such a way? Is the kid being targeted unfairly because of prior – and far less concerning – infractions? Sarah possesses a degree of certainty about Armand’s guilt, and as we learn more about the connection she and Anders have with Elisabeth, the more fascinatingly complicated it all becomes.

The film seems to be going in a similar direction to The Teachers’ Lounge, the outstanding 2023 German picture about an educator trying to find the truth during a series of thefts that get everyone in the school pointing fingers at each other. That is not where it’s going, though. For inexplicable reasons, Armand begins veering into surreal territory. Elisabeth and the custodian engage in a dance number at one point. Later, there’s a bizarre, nearly five-minute-long scene where she’s surrounded by other parents, who repeatedly touch her face. Those are just two examples. These dreamlike moments suck all the drama out of the story, as do a couple of ludicrous third-act plot developments.

The sad part is that the material completely lets down Renate Reinsve. As she did in The Worst Person in the World and A Different Man, the actress gives a rich, detailed performance that is never less than captivating. She makes Elisabeth’s pain palpable for the audience. In perhaps the movie’s best scene, the character breaks into an inappropriate laughing fit that she can’t get out of. Reinsve captures the mixture of horror, embarrassment, and disbelief that causes the incongruous reaction.

Because it gets so far away from its starting point, Armand ends up being a colossal disappointment, despite the best efforts of its leading actress. I didn’t care what did or did not happen by the end. The whole thing gets so bogged down in artsy pretentiousness that it loses whatever appeal there was at the beginning.

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