Slow review - intimate portrait of asexual romance unfolds at unhurried pace

But there's a sense that perhaps too much is withheld. A brief encounter between Elena and a messy ex, which sees the two playfully spar about their compromised morals, is charged with an earthy tension that is missing in the starry-eyed central love affair. As a result, successive scenes in which Elena and Dovydas navigate their different desires - she wants to be physically wanted, he fears disappointing her - can seem like intellectual explorations of a theme rather than grounded conflicts between two individuals. The extended scenes showing Elena's command of her own physicality as a dancer suggest a connection between her profession and her valorisation of the sensuality of the body. However, Dovydas's motivations remain more of a mystery.

This makes the film uneven, though Slow rediscovers its footing in an ending that speaks to a central strength: telling a perceptive, mature and moving story about the many ways people can be capable of love. "I don't think there's one correct way of being together," Dovydas says in a taxi ride late at night, Elena's head propped against his shoulder. "Neither do I," she replies.