Liyo Gong and Stefan Gota in Here (Cinema Guild)

Are you open to a serene, thoughtful valentine to life on film? Or do you dread a suffocatingly gentle cinematic tone poem/snoozefest? Film critics Pollyanna Positive and Negative Nancy took in Belgian director Bas Devos’s Here and came away with very different views of the movie. They’ll duke it out here—readers can decide which approach seems a better fit.

Negative Nancy: OK, I’ll start with the plot. A hunky Romanian construction worker and guest laborer in Belgium, Stefan (Stefan Gota), is about to go on vacation back home, with the suggestion that he may not return. He spends his last few days cleaning out his fridge to make vegetable soup, takes night walks, hangs out with a few friends and his sister, and meets a Chinese woman, Shuxiu (Liyo Gong), a biologist obsessed with studying moss.

Through all this you got long takes, silent pauses, lots of shots of bushes, and a soundtrack of wind and rain on grass that reminds me of ASMR in a YouTube video. For this we’re supposed to get excited?

Pollyanna Positive: Pardon me, but I think you’re missing the point. There is a lot of stillness in this movie—passages of silence. The worker is facing a new stage in life, letting space in for reflection. The silence stands for nature, for the growth pulsating within the moss examined by the scientist, for a sense of eternity and mystery. To me it was very powerful.

And the silence framed some quietly stirring moments of connection. I was very moved by the Stefan’s steady attention to his fellow immigrant colleague. Another scene depicts his subdued affection for his sister. The cinematography frames them beautifully, alone together in a kind of neo-noir Hopper setting. And his new connection with the biologist seemed instinctively strong against the quiet background of the woods. So lush and green—the surrounding felt like a promise.

NN: Yeah, except for all we know he never saw her again! Like women say, men don’t call.

I kind of see what you’re getting at here. There was something intriguing about the silence. But after a while it got to feel like withholding and a gimmick and most of all, not real. In conversations in today’s world, does no one ever raise their voice? The people in this movie are living in a modern city. Does a car never go by blasting music? Do they ever hear a police siren?

That above-it-allness got into the dialogue too. Everyone was very nice. Humbly profound too. Some of the things people said reminded me of Nomadland where total strangers start telling their life stories in sonorous voices…what’s supposed to be a slice of life but just seemed smug and fake, fake, fake.

PP: Nancy, that’s harsh and it’s also not really true. There are some understatedly funny moments. There’s a great scene where he meets an older woman by chance in a community garden. It’s absurd and has a refreshingly improvised feel. He and his sister josh back and forth very convincingly, like family.

Your issue is that you’re addicted to Larry David–type snark. You have zero patience for any show or movie that doesn’t have characters snapping back and forth bitching each other out for filth. That’s not what this is about. It is about what can flourish unspoken when people listen to each other and to the environment around them.

NN: You have a point. There is something to this movie that stuck with me. Moments did come back to me now and then. I almost had to let it in against my will. And you’re right, it is a complete antidote to the yada yada yada-type snarkfest you’re talking about.

PP: See? There’s hope! Next thing it’ll be yoga for you.

NN: Hey, I’m not that desperate!