Fear of what might happen if you were ever actually hypnotized are brought into sharp, hilarious and often wonderfully uncomfortable and satirical relief in Swedish director Ernst De Geer’s feature debut The Hypnosis (Hypnosen) which dwells on the true awfulness that can go alongside social awkwardness. The film’s story revolves around André and Vera (played by Herbert Nordrum and Astra August), a young Stockholm-based entrepreneurial couple who are busy preparing to pitch their female health app called Epione at a prestigious competition called ‘Shake Up’, part of a weekend of workshops, before they finally get to present it to potential investors. Vera is carefully rehearsing her English-language opening pitch but is still frustrated with herself that she can’t give up smoking. She heads off for a session with a hypnotist, and while she comes out still a smoker she seems blessed with a new sense of self- confidence and seems better placed to be able to deal with negative comments. The newly energized Vera is deeply for confusing André with him still trying to hit the correct ‘right on’ notes for their joint presentations while she behaves increasingly erratically. The film gently switches spotlight from Vera’s behavior to how the bemused André attempts to deal with things, with the clever script (co-written by De Geer and Mads Stegger) takes the chance to focus on his dubious ability to co-front a feminist start-up while also never missing the opportunity to relish in Vera’s oddball behaviour, such as miming imaginary chihuahuas! As Jessica Kiang wrote in Variety:”Right up to its finale — with perhaps the sweetest scene of deliberately exposed micturition in recent memory — The Hypnosis is acidly clever as it zeroes in on a key relationship quandary in our age of mandatory therapeutic self-revelation: To love someone is surely to want to help them become the truest version of themselves. But what if that version turns out to be a bit of an asshole?” Mark Adams