User:Þjarkur/Heartstone (film)

Heartstone (Hjartasteinn) is a 2016 Icelandic drama film directed by Guðmundur Arnar Guðmundsson. It tells the story of a strong friendship between two young teenage boys in a small Icelandic fishing village and the emotional and sexual turbulence of adolescence.

It was screened in the Discovery section at the 2016 Toronto International Film Festival. On 9 September 2016, the film won the Queer Lion at the 73rd Venice Film Festival. It was the first Icelandic film to be shown in a competitive section of the Venice Film Festival. It was also nominated for the 2017 Nordic Council Film Prize and won the 2017 Icelandic Edda Awards.

Plot
The film covers a single summer in the life of Thor and Christian, two young teenagers who best friends. They live in a small, unidentified Icelandic fishing village, probably set in the early 2000s. Christian appears somewhat older than Thor. Their two female friends, Beth and Hannah, flirt with them. First steps in sexual ___, Christian is a homosexual who has not admitted it to anyone, and only indirectly admitted it to Thor.

Discusses the small town dynamic of social repression. Social rejection of homosexuality.

The domestic situation of the boys is bad, Christian's father is a drunk who beats him. Thor is raised by a single mother who is crushed by the

Cast

 * Baldur Einarsson as Þór / Thor
 * Blær Hinriksson as Kristján / Christian
 * Diljá Valsdóttir as Beta / Beth
 * Katla Njálsdóttir as Hanna / Hannah
 * Jónína Þórdís Karlsdóttir as Rakel
 * Rán Ragnarsdóttir as Hafdís
 * Søren Malling as Sven
 * Nína Dögg Filippusdóttir as Hulda
 * Gunnar Jónsson as Ásgeir
 * Sveinn Ólafur Gunnarsson as Sigurður

Production
The film is Guðmundur's first feature length film and he began working on the script in 2006. It was shot in the fall of 2015, mainly in Borgarfjörður eystri but also Seyðisfjörður, Vopnafjörður, and Dyrhólaey.

Reception
The film was well received in Iceland and won the 2017 Icelandic Edda Awards. The script, dialogue, and the directing of young actors received praised.

Its main strength was the cinematography, which amplified Icelandic nature, with long shots of coastlines and fjords.

Being over 2 hours long, it was considered too long.

On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 84% based on 25 reviews, with an average rating of 6.97/10. On Metacritic, which assigns normalized rating to reviews, the film has a weighted average score of 70 out of 100, based on 5 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".