Lisa Loven Kongsli makes being right look painful. Her Ebba in Force Majeure keeps a marital argument funny without letting us forget the hurt, and remains our strongest reason to seek her out.
Fi1m perspective
In Force Majeure (2014), Lisa Loven Kongsli's Ebba insists on what happened, with enough hurt behind the insistence to make being right seem poor consolation. It is a persuasive performance, and the clearest reason we have to recommend her work. Ruben Östlund's film turns a father's moment of panic into a marital argument, giving her a role that could have become merely corrective. Ebba has the facts; her husband wants his account accepted. Kongsli makes that difference painful without losing the comedy.
Johannes Bah Kuhnke is excellent opposite her as Tomas, making self-defence sound like a reasonable contribution to the conversation. He needs Ebba to accept his version, and Kongsli makes clear how much that acceptance would ask of her. We laughed at their attempts to make this an ordinary disagreement, then felt uncomfortable because Kongsli kept Ebba's hurt present throughout the exchanges. The comedy would be easier, and less interesting, if she simply made Ebba contemptuous of him.
That leading role brought wider attention, followed by Menalippe in Wonder Woman (2017) and Justice League (2017). The move into larger productions did not mean leaving Scandinavian features behind. She plays Dara in Giraffe (2019), while Edith in Solomamma (2025) was her first leading role in a Norwegian feature. Cristian Mungiu's Fjord (2026) gives her another central part, as Frida. Those credits suggest why it would be a mistake to treat the studio work as the destination and the family dramas as the preparation.
Östlund does not get everything right around her: the marital arguments in Force Majeure go on longer than they need to. Kongsli can sustain Ebba's hurt, but she cannot make every return to the dispute necessary. That matters when judging her work, because the patience the film demands is not evidence of anything lacking in her performance. We would like more leading parts that leave her this much room to be difficult without making her unsympathetic. Choose Force Majeure when there is no pressing need for a peaceful evening.
Biography
Lisa Loven Kongsli is a Norwegian actress. She made her screen debut in 2008 and has appeared in Norwegian films including Fatso (2008), Twigson (2009) and The Orheim Company (2012).
She received a Guldbagge Award nomination for Best Actress for her performance as Ebba in Ruben Östlund’s Force Majeure (2014). She played the prime minister’s wife in the series Occupied (2015) and portrayed the Amazon warrior Menalippe in Wonder Woman (2017), Justice League (2017) and Zack Snyder’s Justice League (2021).
Kongsli trained at the Lee Strasberg Theater Institute in New York. In 2026 she appeared as Frida in Cristian Mungiu’s Fjord, which won the Palme d’Or at Cannes, and had earlier starred as Edith in Solomamma (2025), for which she received the Best Actress award at the Barcelona Film Festival.
