Honeymoon (2017)

HELEN (32), a cello player and composer, struggles to find the way to live further after her husband, Toomas, a film-maker and editor,  had tried to commit suicide just few months after their marriage. Having detached herself from work, refusing all the job offers and not playing any more, she spends her time between home and hospital, listening  to the audio recordings Toomas used to send her from the different places and finding out the reason for Toomas´ attempt.

The only person Helen sees is Lea, Toomas' sister, who from time to time comes to the hospital with her  and visits her at home in the evenings.

One morning a courier deliver some film stock and a DVD with the the film scan, that belongs to Toomas. Intrigued by that, Helen looks at the material and discover footage about Laima, a Latvian photographer, whom he met during his last work trip in Poland and Latvia. The footage show them in an intimate and intense relationship and reveals that Lea, Toomas' sister, was aware of that.  Helen is shocked by this discovery

Despite that Helen wants to deny what she has just seen and blame all on Laima, she must now cope with the new reality and understand her feelings towards Toomas.

She visits Toomas at the hospital but stays silent on the doorway of his room. On the way back home on the bus her attention is drawn by a man with a familiar face, who stands at a bus stop and looks at her, sketching a greeting.

In the late afternoon Lea visits Helen and invites her to get out of this detachment. Helen asks her whether she knows about Laima, but Lea denies it, stating Toomas has never shared too much about his private or working wife. Lea invites Helen to come back to work, telling her Raivo, Toomas´s producer, have been inquiring about the soundtrack she was supposed to compose for the husband´s last documentary.

Later on Helen enters the bedroom, which has been in the same state since Toomas´ attempt, puts Toomas phone on charge  and goes through the messages and last calls, but the folders are empty. Raivo calls her up, but Helen hangs up on him. Later in the day Helen picks up the photos from the wedding and visits a cafeteria, where she leafs through them. There the same man from the bus stop appears and Helen eventually recognizes him. It is Rasmus, a classmate from High school , who reveals  he has been always in love with her, even though he has never had the guts to tell her. Rasmus lives now in Riga but moved back to Tallinn for a while because of work and because of having a matrimonial crisis with the Latvian wife. They spend some time together and walk back to Rasmus´ hotel. Rasmus invites her to the room, but Helen refuses.

At home Helen picks up the cello for the first time after the suicide attempt and tries to play it, but the  cords are hard and the notes sound artificial. Helen throws up in the toilette.

Toomas´ phone rings and Helen confronts Laima, faking that she is Toomas´sister. Laima asks kindly to let Toomas call her back. Later on at the hospital she finds out that the chances for Toomas to survive are now minimal. Helen enters the room and slaps the  unconscious  husband, shaking his body violently as if willing to wake him up, before rushing out, shocked by her own behaviour.

On the way home Helen meets Lea, who hands her in Laima´s number, but Helen refuses it, confessing it does not have any meaning any more. Helen decides to meet Rasmus again at his hotel room, where she accepts his first proposals. However when they eventually get to the bed, Helen pushes him violently away and  and run away.

While the bus ride introduces the final  scenes of the footage about  Laima, where Toomas speaks in front of the camera for the first time, Helen is back home, to her cello and those hard cords and rough notes become now a painful melody, through which Helen´s grief deeply profuses. Helen falls asleep in the bedroom, looking at Toomas´ phone.

Few days later Helen visits Toomas at the hospital, Laima is also there. Helen needs to confront her.

Keywords: adultery | forgiving | love | grief | anger | View all »