‘Louder Than Bombs’ never quite comes together

Starring Isabelle Huppert, Gabriel Byrne and Jesse Eisenberg. Directed by Joachim Trier.

Rated R for language, some sexual content, nudity and violent images. Check listings for theaters. 1 hour, 49 minutes.

Bottom line: Story just drifts with no insight into grief process

Three men mourn the loss of the woman who tied them together in “Louder Than Bombs,” the English language debut of Norwegian director Joachim Trier, written with his frequent collaborator Eskil Vogt. Gene (Gabriel Byrne) enlists his two sons, Jonah (Jesse Eisenberg) and Conrad (Devid Druid), in sifting through the career of his late wife, their mother, noted war photographer Isabelle (Isabelle Huppert) for a retrospective of her work. The task offers the opportunity for the trio to finally reckon with both her life and her death, several years after a fatal car crash.

Isabelle appears frequently in the memories, flashbacks and imaginations of the three men, a compelling and elusive figure, a sylph slipping away from their grasp. As played by the soulful Huppert, Isabelle is the most intriguing element of “Louder Than Bombs,” and it’s obvious why these men are caught in a loop of trying to decipher her inner life and motivations. The men are frustrated by her opacity, her intangibility. And because the film is so rooted in their perspective, it too is frustrated, failing to elucidate anything about her.

The perspective of “Louder Than Bombs” is heavily male, though there are plenty of women in the film: Conrad’s English teacher, Ms. Brennan (Amy Ryan), with whom Gene has a secret relationship. There’s also Jonah’s wife; she recently gave birth to their daughter, but he studiously avoids her in order to hang out with his college ex.

It’s clear that in losing one woman, these men are projecting their issues, their longing, their contempt, onto other women. But there are no consequences for any of their actions, which range from selfish to confrontational, so there are no real stakes. The men see the women as figures to be attained, dismissed or obsessed over, but not to be understood. The film also fails to do so.

“Louder Than Bombs” never quite comes together. You keep waiting for it to gel, but it just drifts along until it drifts away. There’s no special insight into the process of grief or loss, partly because the trio of characters we follow become increasingly self-involved and badly behaved.

Eisenberg, an excellent actor, has an inherent neurotic coldness that doesn’t lend well to this role, which could have used a warmer performer to soften the choices that Jonah makes throughout the film. Byrne is fine, if serviceable; the great Amy Ryan is wasted; and newcomer Druid turns the teenager mope up to 11.

The only performer who breathes life into the material is Huppert, who pops off the screen filled with life even as a ghostly presence. Though “Louder Than Bombs” feigns interest in Isabelle, it’s a shame that its distant nature doesn’t allow her to fully come into focus.