Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Gabriel Byrne, Isabelle Huppert, Jesse Eisenberg, Devin Druid, Amy Ryan, Ruby Jerins, Megan Ketch, David Strathairn, Rachel Brosnahan, Russell Posner.

All we are looking for is a connection, a reason to hold onto certain memories and recollections about our lives and those we hold dear to our lives. When that reason to have and hold is taken away in the blink of an eye, when Time reminds us with no quarter given, that all can be lost and shattered as easily as bones in an accident, then connection is frustrated and we have to make our own way, unguided and censured; the only companion is silence and it is one that is Louder than Bombs, more destructive than loneliness.

Joachim Trier’s Louder Than Bombs alludes to the fierce nature of families placed under a microscope of emotion when the rock of the family passes on; the certain framings of scenes that are not seen by other members of that unit and the damnation attributed, perhaps unfairly, when for a moment the need to hold someone close just to still feel alive is so overpowering it can cause eyes to look in a different direction. The film captures this as a camera would show a scene of devastation but also one that requires no words if the frame of the camera’s shot is perfectly placed.

Louder Than Bombs sees Jesse Eisenberg return to great form after a very disappointing showing as Lex Luther in the Batman/Superman crossover; it is the type of role he really excels within and one he should be encouraged to do more. The softly spoken and nervously heroic demeanour stands much more with conviction in his hands than a part in which the audience feels uncomfortable with, a part which goes against the feeling of openness and disclosure to which his body language always holds out for audience inspection.

Coupled with Devin Druid’s excellently portrayed troubled teen Conrad and playing off against the chiselled sadness of Gabriel Byrne’s character Gene, the film carries the audience member into their own thoughts of they might come to terms with grief. Nobody can ever truly answer that question till the time comes, when the moment between moments takes that person away but like a snapshot from a camera, the stillness of the photograph and of grief, needs to be fully seen with no cropping and no fancy editing.

A beautifully portrayed film in which Jesse Eisenberg really shines, silence in grief will always be Louder Than Bombs, it takes a sympathetic heart to hear them.

Ian D. Hall