We live in a transitional era regarding relationship politics, as more people carve romantic and sexual lives for themselves outside the prescribed trajectory of love, marriage, procreation and nuclear family. The emergence of LGBT identities into the mainstream has had much to do with this, of course, but our collective understanding of opposite-sex partnerships — those once deemed merely “normal” — is evolving too, alive to the complexities of bisexuality and open relationships. Screen romance, however, remains largely behind this curve, which is why Dag Johan Haugerud’s new film “Love” feels, in its quiet, conversational way, rather radical: a tender, gently observed relationship study that places as much stock in casual sex as in seeking a soulmate. Following two very different medical professionals on their contrasting quests for intimacy, it’s the rare romantic drama that concedes one person’s happily-ever-after is not necessarily another’s.

The fourth feature by Norwegian novelist and filmmaker Haugerud,...