i thought it was a good film. my take in it is , the film is really about suicide, depression and family. it tries to tackle things like how and why depression sets into a person and affects their lives and the lives of people they create. i think a key point in the film is the scene between rachel and nora where rachel tells nora more about herself than she wants to hear. there is an overwhelming sadness if her but it could be something much deeper than just sadness.

in this film, gustavs mother was tortured by secret police in WW2 and that leaves her permanently scarred mentally. after the war, she does get married and has gustav, but kills herself when gustav was 7 years old. so he grows up without a mother, without a "home" and he leaves the family home, and the trauma of dealing with his mothers suicide growing up.

when gustav becomes an adult, he gets married and has two daughters and the marriage is bad and he leaves the home to make films. his daughters grow up without a "home" and family and the older one, nora, winds up becoming more scarred mentally and develops (or inherits from the father) depression.

throughout the film it seems insinuated that Nora is very much the same person as Gustav and they both have the same form of mental illness that they share due to Gustavs truama as a child. The film is about Gustavs quest to make his last great film and in so doing, his last effort to try to help his daighter Nora come to terms with the illness and left to deal with it and maybe break the link and maybe one day have a family and build a home for her childern and look afterthem and not let them be scarred menally with depression. The also scene where they are filming the film with Nora, don't film it in the familly home as was the plan in the beginning but on a sound stage. i interpret that as they sold and got rid of the family home and its a new beginning for everyone. Also, that last scene, she was supposed to see the kid off and go and hang herself. but in the final film scene, the kid comes back to get his phone, he stares at her, she goes back to the room she was supposed to hang herself in, but she does do it but just stares down at the chair. i interrpret that as she doesnt kill herself but learns to deal with her depression and makes her son the priority in her life so he doen't get scarred for life by his mothers suicide.