FLASH: Lance Hammer returns to narrative filmmaking at the Berlinale with Queen at Sea, a compact, unsettling drama that has become one of the festival’s most talked-about titles.
What happens
Queen at Sea pivots on a quiet domestic rupture: a daughter discovers her elderly mother and the woman’s partner in an intimate moment. That encounter—set against the mother’s advancing dementia—triggers police involvement, medical assessments and a family rift that refuses easy answers. Rather than chasing melodrama, the film patiently follows the ensuing investigations and the slow, uncomfortable reckonings that follow.
The story
Hammer stages the aftermath like a procedural, letting officers, doctors and relatives interrogate capacity, consent and affection. Scenes unfold as small, decisive exchanges: interviews, clinical evaluations, corridor-talks and courtroom-adjacent moments. The film resists a tidy moral judgment; instead it holds competing perspectives in tension, asking viewers to weigh autonomy against protection without handing down a verdict.
Performances
The cast keeps the moral ambiguity grounded. Tom Courtenay is quietly persuasive as the devoted partner—stubborn, affectionate and oddly serene in his own conviction. Juliette Binoche channels a daughter’s exhaustion and fury with a series of restrained, precise expressions; she rarely yells, yet her weariness carries the room. Anna Calder-Marshall inhabits the mother with heartbreaking fragility—fleeting warmth one minute, disorientation the next—so that sympathy and uncertainty coexist. Florence Hunt supplies a lighter but meaningful counterpoint: her subplot about first romance offers breath between the film’s heavier scenes and underscores the film’s themes of endings and beginnings.
How it looks and feels
Hammer returns to fiction with a pared-back, observational approach that favors stillness over spectacle. Much of Queen at Sea was shot on 35mm, which gives the images a textured, lived-in quality. Cinematographer Adolpho Veloso composes around doorways, stairwells and narrow corridors—the architecture often suggesting emotional distance as much as physical separation. Several exterior sequences use Balfron Tower in East London; its Brutalist lines mirror the film’s concerns about institutional scrutiny and isolation.
The house where the drama mostly plays out feels like a character in its own right. Rooms, furniture and camera placement map relationships: where people stand, where they sit, what they look at—all of it registers as part of the film’s quiet choreography. Editing choices favor lingering on faces and small gestures; the effect is deliberate and sometimes heavy, but it amplifies how the story’s stakes live in tiny, human movements.
Themes and tone
Hammer’s film sits at the uneasy intersection of love, illness and law. It asks practical questions—How do we determine meaningful consent? When does intimacy become exploitation?—and refuses to offer tidy solutions. That refusal is the movie’s provocation: viewers leave compelled to argue, not comforted by closure.
Critics at the Berlinale are divided on tone. Many praise the ensemble’s restraint and the film’s refusal of sentimentality; others worry that its formal austerity can distance audiences from emotional clarity. Both reactions feel accurate: the film’s measured pace allows for a realistic portrayal of institutional processes, but it also demands patience and moral wrestling from its viewers.
Reception and conversations
Since its premiere, Queen at Sea has sparked sustained discussion among jurors, critics and social-care professionals. Panels and post-screening debates are scheduled to continue, and advocacy groups have flagged the film as a useful prompt for public conversation about elder care, consent laws and the limits of social services. Rather than settling disputes, the film has become a catalyst for them—precisely the effect Hammer seems to want.
Moments of relief
Despite its grave subject, the film offers brief respites. The subplot featuring Florence Hunt’s character and a handful of outdoor scenes provide tonal breathing room, preventing relentless bleakness and reminding audiences of life beyond the crisis.
What happens
Queen at Sea pivots on a quiet domestic rupture: a daughter discovers her elderly mother and the woman’s partner in an intimate moment. That encounter—set against the mother’s advancing dementia—triggers police involvement, medical assessments and a family rift that refuses easy answers. Rather than chasing melodrama, the film patiently follows the ensuing investigations and the slow, uncomfortable reckonings that follow.0