‘LOUDER THAN BOMBS’

Cast: Isabelle Huppert, Gabriel Byrne, Jesse Eisenberg, Devin Druid, Amy Ryan (R) 1:49

Three men mourn the loss of the woman who tied them together in “Louder Than Bombs,” from Norwegian filmmaker Joachim Trier.

In this English-language drama, Gene (Gabriel Byrne) and his two sons — Jonah (played by Jesse Eisenberg) and Conrad (Devin Druid) — sift through the career of noted war photographer Isabelle (Isabelle Huppert) for a retrospective of her work.

Isabelle was Gene’s wife and the boys’ mother. The retrospective offers the opportunity for the three finally to reckon with both her life and death, several years after the car crash that killed her. Isabelle appears via flashbacks in the memories and imaginations of the three — a compelling but elusive figure who repeatedly slips from their grasp.

We keep waiting for this story to gel, but it drifts along until it drifts away, delivering no special insights into loss or grief, partly because the badly behaved survivors are so self-involved.