Welcome to Norway

Recent years have seen unexampled flux of refugees into Europe, but films made of this topics and mainly documentaries or painful feature films dealing with miserable life of asylum seekers in their homeland. But the film in question has totally different setting, providing more realistic views on this issue from both sides - refugees and their hosts.

Being a wealthy country, the problems Norway has to deal with here are definitely different from the southern EU countries, plus there are also people critical to the state asylum policy. On the other hand, in the event of money provided or received, there is also a scam opportunity... All those and many other versatile issues are wittily dealt through several angles, laugh and rue. The pace is not fully even, 1st half or so is more dynamic than the 2nd, but pleasant performances (particularly Anders Baasmo Christiansen as Primus, Slimane Dazi as Zoran and Olivier Mukuta as Abedi) iron out these small deficiencies.

True, for this film, you have to be broad-minded, without strong left or right ideas. Otherwise you may hurt your feelings and/or see the film as a mockery of "high-minded" policies.

There's great potential for comedy when different cultures are put together, and a house for refugees is also a very relevant setting for a modern day comedy. The actors in this movie all deliver solid performances, and act convincingly as the characters they are portraying. I also quite like a lot (everything?) seems like it's filmed on location. There's a great potential here for both comedy, and a heartwarming story.

Somehow the movie fails to deliver on both. At times it is surprisingly cynical, and some of the characters go back and forwards between believable and caricature. I did appreciate some of the dark humour, but it would have worked better with more believable characters. The woman working for the local government feels like she taken from a Ben Stiller comedy, while some of the refugees could have been characters in a drama. Not because of the quality of anyone's acting, but because the characters themselves feels like they're made for completely different movies.

The ending plays like it's supposed to make you feel good and think that people are alright - but the message it actually conveys feels more misanthropic than it does heartwarming.

People like Abedi actually does exist in real life. He came to Norway illegally but that doesn't mean he didn't belong there. He did what little he could with the resources that he had to make the world a better place, feeling no resentment towards Norwegians even tho he certainly had a valid reason to do so. As for the main character.. Brutus or whatever he's called.. His personality made me wanna punch the TV screen. I was rooting for him to get arrested and for Abedi to take over his job.. Sad to say but people like him also exists in real life... Don't know how his wife put up with him.

I enjoyed watching this even tho it was annoying at times. It had a certain realism to it even tho it was slightly exaggerated. Running an immigration center in Norway is a complicated process and it doesn't work like that.. Then again it's a movie, it's fiction.. Not meant to be mistaken for real life.

It's worth 7/10 to me. Seen better, seen worse. Abedi was the highlight of this movie and he kept me watching.