Sykt lykkelig

Sykt Lykkelig is not a bad movie, and even though some places market it as a movie that targets the female demographic, it's really a movie for everyone (though maybe not kids).

There's several charming moments in this movie. The characters are both really nice, with their quirks and their flaws. The master/slave-games the children are playing is a good example of the dark comedy in this movie. And there's plenty of embarrassing moments in this movie, for those who like that sort of humor. And I like that the movie is set in rural Norway.

But the movie never really reaches that high. The charming moments come and go, and the characters do all change throughout the movie, but when it's over, it kind of feels like it was all for nothing.

It's a movie worth watching, but I can't imagine revisiting this movie much.

I knew after the first 10 minutes that it was going to be pretty much like this for the entirety of the film. Sometimes, that's a good thing. In this case, no. Unless you enjoy uncomfortable domestic situations and people who are insecure and story lines that offer no relief. I'm sorry, but it's not entertaining, for one thing - but it's also not making a grande statement. It's just not pleasurable to watch. I guess, if I would say one thing, I feel bad that very fine actors were involved in this effort, mostly because the script left them nowhere interesting to go. It's definitely not a comedy in the sense that I was hoping for. Maybe Norwegians think this is hilarious? I'm not sure. But as an American who loves mostly foreign films, this one struck me as one to put back in the DVD box before I could make it to one laugh.

HAPPY,HAPPY (dir. Anne Sewitsky) The film is an off-beat examination of two failing marriages in a very isolated, wintry, and picturesque area of Norway. An urban professional couple have fled the city with their adopted African son, and they are trying to reestablish their marriage after the wife's infidelity. Their new neighbors are another couple with a young boy, and the husband is a repressed homosexual, and his wife is in denial. This leads to an illicit sexual affair, and the the film documents the couples' dramatic realignment. Several times during the film a 'Greek Chorus' of singers interrupt the drama with Country- Western inflected Negro Spirituals, and both genres are singularly American, and this made me wonder about the director's attitude towards Americans. Is the director asking Norwegian audiences to view the universal problem of sexual infidelity through American eyes? The songs seemed to be selected to suggest 'lost love' or 'longing' which reinforce a major theme of the film, and reminded me of Lindsay Anderson's surrealistic film, O LUCKY MAN, in which Alan Price's combo provided random musical commentary. Another strange or unusual aspect in the film is the treatment of 'Race'. The African child is asked to play a slave by the other young boy. This is rather inexplicable, yet it might be an attempt to demonstrate the child's confusion over his father's sexual identity. This is a thought provoking and strikingly original film, and I highly recommend it.

Kaja is an unrelenting cheerful person. She's a teacher. Her husband Eirick is a jerk. For example, he and their son play a silent-treatment game which they know infuriates her. Couple Elisabeth and Sigve move in next door with their adopted African boy Noa. One night, Sigve brings out a box called The Couples Game. Kaja and Eirick have a tough time with the game. Kaja reveals to Sigve that they haven't had sex for a year. Sigve tells her that Elisabeth cheated on him. Sigve and Kaja start a secret affair.

This indie is a little bit slow at times. Kaja is a great character. The actors are all good. There is some relationship fun. Then there is one too many reveal twist with Eirick. Instead of emotional intensity, it becomes a sudsy endeavor. I can do without that final twist. The humor doesn't always work.

Happy, Happy (2011)

This is a modest film, for sure, and if you take the basic element of it, it's a story told many times. But it's told very well, and it has two extra layers that give it a really odd, pointed humor and pathos (both). You might reduce it all by saying: how Scandinavian. Maybe.

Most of the plot is simple. A sophisticated city couple move to the country to live for awhile. (We are never sure why, and they don't work, but it's more than just a holiday.) The wife (played by the chiseled Danish t.v. actress Maibritt Saerens) is reluctant in the opening scene, but the ground is covered with snow and it seems like a necessary adventure.

They rent a little house from a country couple who live next door, and the most famous star of the movie is this woman, a simple and idealistic kind of woman (Agnes Kittelsen). She must be the reason for the movie, because she is naive to the point of blindness to her situation (or so we are led to think). Her husband is a slightly abusive guy who gets their son on his side in affairs.

The city couple/country couple dynamic is nothing new, and it has some of the familiar expected results, including a genuine mutual admiration between the two women (one appreciating country life, the other admiring urban chic). But a rivalry also is brewing, and some infidelity results. With the nice new complication of a gay element, which I will leave vague and simply say that it happens in a very natural and almost normal way.

This is all pretty good stuff, and the making of a simple but satisfying human drama. The two additional layers change the tone of it all. The first is almost silly you would think, but in little inserts, artificially and comically positioned as markers, is a kind of Greek chorus—played by a Scandinavian barbershop quartet in English. It's hilarious and surreal. And it makes you reflect on the events as theater, not quite as a depiction of real people.

The other layer is tougher to take, and is given brief but critical screen time. The country couple has a boy of their own, and the city couple has an adopted Ethiopian child about the same age. In an apparently innocent way, the white child plays slave master to the black child, who plays slave (willingly, and with no serious physical harm). The dynamic is chilling to a viewer, and only slowly do the parents catch on (partly because they are all absorbed in their own drama). There is a terrific five second resolution to this near the end, by the city woman, and as cruel and crude as it seems, it's perfect and necessary. And it cuts through all the other crap, somehow, too.

By the end you see a kind of fable played out, and it might be a bit simple, but it's sweet and sad and funny enough to work. I liked this more than I thought I would at first.