I'm afraid there is no way to discuss this film without spoilers, so I apologise for that.
This is about two sisters who drifted apart after the family broke up. The father went off with another woman. The mother was broken hearted and went into meltdown. The older sister (Eva Green) was sucked into the whirlpool and spent an unhappy life looking after the fragile and suicidal mother and accumulating resentment towards her younger sister (Alicia Vikander), who refused to be sucked down with them and struck out on her own with an artistic career that was apparently quite successful.
That is the back story. Now the older sister has persuaded her younger sibling to join her on a holiday (perhaps successful because the latter's career is in a downward trajectory and she needs the break). The destination is very mysterious and it turns out to be some kind of retreat. It appears to be an effort at bonding, so it comes as a shock for the younger sister to discover she has been invited to attend the final week of her sister's life. Not only that, but instead of an exercise in bonding, the older sister seems to have planned to discharge all that pent up resentment (which most likely is what is killing her) on her sibling.
It seemed so unfair, as if the younger sister was supposed to carry the burden of the mother's and sister's anguish when quite clearly she was grieving herself and needed her own strong person with a shoulder to cry on. Charlotte Rampling was ostensibly that person, but unreliable, as she tricked her and locked her in a room to make her miss her helicopter exit from the hell she was going through.
Like any prisoner who no longer sees any escape, she ends up going through the process and I dare say the older sister derived pleasure from seeing her weakened and suffering, which in its own twisted way appears to have enabled her to move on smoothly, but left me thoroughly disliking this film.
Euphoria
(I) (2017)
Very disappointing, as I am a fan of the two leads
28 January 2021
Warning: Spoilers