Quietly devastating and utterly spellbinding, Alex Burunova’s Satisfaction is screening at the Glasgow Film Festival this weekend. Fans of Mayor of Kingstown on Paramount+ will recognise lead actress Emma Laird from her role as Iris, and know that she doesn’t shy from difficult material, though this performance ventures into particularly dark territory.
Set against the sun-washed beauty of the Greek Isles, British composers Lola (Emma Laird) and Philip (Fionn Whitehead) exist together in a relationship defined less by love than by distance and silence. For all the tranquillity of their surroundings, an unbreachable divide spans between them. When Lola meets the enigmatic Elena (Zar Amir Ebrahimi), the fragile equilibrium between Lola and Philip begins to fracture, revealing a much darker portrait of people bound together by trauma.
Before the darkness suddenly descends on Satisfaction, Burunova lingers on Lola’s extraordinary talent and her creative process. She listens to the world around her and transforms it into music: footsteps splashing in puddles, dog walkers beneath a bridge, a truck reversing in the street outside.
Sound becomes composition and composition becomes a way of understanding life itself. Is this how great composers hear the world, every fragment of noise forming a greater harmony?
But then the film turns and Lola’s music is taken from her not once, but twice as she is betrayed by the person closest to her
The performances in Satisfaction carry the delicate emotional weight of the film with grace and restraint. Emma Laird is incredible and Zar Amir Ebrahimi mesmerising. One unforgettable scene between Lola and Elena unfolds without audible dialogue. We know what Lola is telling Elena, and what Elena says in reply, yet all we hear is the crash of waves against the rocks. It is a remarkable moment of trust between filmmaker and audience.
Visually, Satisfaction is stunning. The coastal location and luxury villa are beautifully captured, breathing with the characters where they stagnate. Sound plays a vital role too, in the near-silences where the world around Lola becomes audible, and in Midori Hirano’s ethereal score.
Contrasted against the idyllic location, the film reveals something far darker. Burunova explores betrayal and the ways in which we rewrite our own trauma in order to survive. Satisfaction is billed as a romance but it is not. It is an unromance, a story about something beautiful being stolen and almost destroyed. One line, quietly spoken, says it all: the night I said no.
Yet Satisfaction ultimately finds catharsis. Sunlight, wind, waves. Fingers gently caress the air, as if searching for notes only she can hear.
I give Satisfaction a full five out of five stars and expect this haunting film to become a festival standout and a serious awards contender in 2026.
★★★★★
Content note: Satisfaction includes an extended scene that may be upsetting for some viewers.
Satisfaction enjoys its UK film festival premier at Glasgow Film Festival on 7 & 8 March and will screen at BFI Flare London LGBTQIA+ Film Festival on 22 & 23 March and Manchester Film Festival on 23 March.