At a North London hospital, two nurses hook up. She’s a young and cheerful import from Norway, who is rattled by the sudden death of a patient. He’s an Italian who’s older and broody, his grizzled beard going grey. Full of mystery, he also rides a motorcycle. When she finally accepts a ride with him, he suggests she just keep the helmet he lent her, indicating a future of nocturnal journeys.
There is a naturalism behind the budding workplace romance of Katerina and Nik in the feature “Transference: A Love Story,” but it withholds information just the way the enigmatic suitor does. That’s realistic too; life holds innumerable mysteries. Still, you’d think she’d Google him or otherwise try to find more information about him as their connection deepens.
What she learns of what he didn’t tell her is common as well, probably more common than we think. I think I’ll withhold the information as well to allow you the same mystery and discovery (though the film’s materials and the unnecessarily scientific title are glad to spill — though it’s not clear the title’s psychological term is even the correct diagnosis here).
The Norwegian actress Emilie Sofie Johannesen is charming and incandescent in the lea role as Katerina, a young woman who journals (and sometimes narrates) and turns theorems of physics through her mind and harbors hopes of travel. Her curiosity and empathetic emotional response are apparent in every expression. I’m not sure what she sees in Nik, though. While being consoling in one scene, he’s otherwise standoffish and initially rebuffs her advances.