When Ulrik (Stellan Skarsgard) is released from prison at the start of Hans Petter Moland's wry crime comedy, he looks like something ragged and frozen, a man who's been left under an emotional tundra from which he never expected to be thawed out. Moland's film is much the same, shot in a dark and slushy corner of Norway which appears to be mostly industrial wasteland that hasn't seen the sun or an honest smile in living memory. Just about the only hint of life in the film is the score, which bubbles along with a circus-like humor underneath the surface of this initially very dour, quiet, and uneventful film, reminding us that, yes, indeed, this is a comedy.
For reasons not fully explained until late in the story, Ulrik spent twelve years behind bars for murder. A career criminal with a lengthy sheet, he doesn't seem sure about coming back to real life. A guard appears more optimistic than he about the release, admonishing the freed man to only look forward -- a cockeyed shot of Moland's shows Ulrik looking almost with regret at the prison's dark stone edifice he's just been ejected from.
Waiting for Ulrik on the outside are a mismatched pair of old thieving buddies: Jensen the boss, a Napoleonic browbeater whose shirts are always unbuttoned just a little too far and who loves nothing more than to verbally harass his sidekick, the admittedly none-too-bright Rolf. They set him up in a dingy basement room where the landlady at first gives Ulrik the evil eye but is soon bringing him home-cooked meals and offering up her body.
The deadpan nature of Moland's comedy becomes more apparent through Ulrik's interaction with the various women of the film. Stoic to an extreme but mostly game for whatever comes up, Ulrik has no shortage of women of varying levels of attractiveness offering first to cook for and then to bed him. The couplings, particularly with his lady, have a curious and animalistic, not to mention efficiently businesslike, nature that gives some idea of the absurdities which Moland's story has in store.
The further the film follows Ulrik into the particulars of his criminal past and potential future (particularly the guilt which Jensen layers over him for sending Ulrik's family money while he was away), the more he opens up. Coming into contact with the son who renounced his memory years before brings a smile to Skarsgard's seemingly frozen face, and it becomes increasingly likely that he won't carry through on his stated intention of killing the man whose testimony put him in prison to begin with.
Though it all, Skarsgard's performance is precise and cautious but commanding all the same. Slightly hunched but quiet, his graying ponytail dragging out over the overalls he wears at the car body shop where Jensen finds him a job, his Ulrik is somebody waiting for life to find him again. Incredibly, Skarsgard is able to make this waiting compelling. His central role is a necessity here, as Kim Fupz Aakeson's script doesn't at first provide much in the way of dramatic connection. By the time that the film begins to come alive, it's almost too late, but not quite. Moland crafts a curious and cold little comedy about people withdrawing from life and how (and if) they decide to return to it; its thawing is a long time coming, but worth it.
aka En ganske snill mann
For reasons not fully explained until late in the story, Ulrik spent twelve years behind bars for murder. A career criminal with a lengthy sheet, he doesn't seem sure about coming back to real life. A guard appears more optimistic than he about the release, admonishing the freed man to only look forward -- a cockeyed shot of Moland's shows Ulrik looking almost with regret at the prison's dark stone edifice he's just been ejected from.
Waiting for Ulrik on the outside are a mismatched pair of old thieving buddies: Jensen the boss, a Napoleonic browbeater whose shirts are always unbuttoned just a little too far and who loves nothing more than to verbally harass his sidekick, the admittedly none-too-bright Rolf. They set him up in a dingy basement room where the landlady at first gives Ulrik the evil eye but is soon bringing him home-cooked meals and offering up her body.
The deadpan nature of Moland's comedy becomes more apparent through Ulrik's interaction with the various women of the film. Stoic to an extreme but mostly game for whatever comes up, Ulrik has no shortage of women of varying levels of attractiveness offering first to cook for and then to bed him. The couplings, particularly with his lady, have a curious and animalistic, not to mention efficiently businesslike, nature that gives some idea of the absurdities which Moland's story has in store.
The further the film follows Ulrik into the particulars of his criminal past and potential future (particularly the guilt which Jensen layers over him for sending Ulrik's family money while he was away), the more he opens up. Coming into contact with the son who renounced his memory years before brings a smile to Skarsgard's seemingly frozen face, and it becomes increasingly likely that he won't carry through on his stated intention of killing the man whose testimony put him in prison to begin with.
Though it all, Skarsgard's performance is precise and cautious but commanding all the same. Slightly hunched but quiet, his graying ponytail dragging out over the overalls he wears at the car body shop where Jensen finds him a job, his Ulrik is somebody waiting for life to find him again. Incredibly, Skarsgard is able to make this waiting compelling. His central role is a necessity here, as Kim Fupz Aakeson's script doesn't at first provide much in the way of dramatic connection. By the time that the film begins to come alive, it's almost too late, but not quite. Moland crafts a curious and cold little comedy about people withdrawing from life and how (and if) they decide to return to it; its thawing is a long time coming, but worth it.
aka En ganske snill mann
