The human experience isn’t black and white; human identity is so complex. You can’t reduce a human to one thing. You can be courageous, afraid, selfish, kind, practical, and emotional all at the same time. The choices we make depend on the situation, and they rely on our past experiences, the values we’ve grown up with, and the people we’ve surrounded ourselves with. So, Julie isn’t the worst person in the world. I honestly think she’s one of the realest characters portrayed.

Early in the film, Julie is in a relationship with Aksel, an older man. At first, she believes she’s happy, but through her relationship with him, she realizes that she is slowly chipping away parts of herself in exchange for staying with him. She admits she’s not happy even though she knows she’s hurting someone else, and even though what she did is morally complciated, it’s a choice a lot of people have had to make in relationships.

Another significant aspect of Julie’s character is her career path.She at first started studying medicine, but then decided it wasn’t for her. She then switched to psychology, which she also abandoned. Then she decided she wanted to pursue photography. She works at a bookstore to support herself, and then at the end of the film, she works as an on-set photographer at a film shoot. Her drifting from one career to another I something I strongly related to in my life when I decided to make a career switch from medicine to film. I don’t think it shows that she’s a fickle person; I think it shows that she was slowly discovering parts of her identity that led her to discover her passion.

Another part of Julie that stands out is her lack of friendships. The movie focuses a lot on her romantic relationships, and there aren’t scenes where she hangs out with her peers outside of her significant others. She does seem to be an expert in having fleeting interactions with people, like when she met Eivind at an event and had deep, authentic conversations with him. I think this reflects her facing a lot of the changes in her life alone. She doesn’t have any friends to support her, and we don’t see that she has the best relationship with her family, which I think plays a main role in shaping who she is. Her family often pressures her to follow a “safe” path and settle down, but Julie wants autonomy. She wants meaning in her life.

Overall, what makes Julie so interesting is that she doesn’t punish herself for who she is. She stumbles, but then she always gets back on. She kind of just lives life. This is why I think the main lesson of the film is that we should embrace life’s unpredictability and allow ourselves to grow and find who we really are. It reminds us that it’s really okay to be imperfect while figuring your life out.