Royal Sun

Director Thomas Villum Jensen and writer Anders Thomas Jensen are at last teamed up again for the first time since their Oscar-nominated short feature "Ernst and the Light". Where Anders Thomas Jensen has had the greater artistic success of the two, writing and directing "Flickering Lights", "The Green Butchers" and "Adam's Apples" and writing several other acclaimed pictures, Villum Jensen has focused on his work as an actor, occasionally directing mainstream family entertainment such as "Love at First Hiccough" and "My Sister's Children". "Solkongen" was shot in Svendborg, Denmark, a town on the south side of Funen, and although no-one in the film speaks with the proper accent, the milieu is actually very well captured. The characters are all very believable, even the more stereotyped comic-reliefs like Niels Olsen and Thomas Bo Larsen. That being said, the story is a classic comedy with the structure of a fairytale, only a very strange one. A middle-aged, wealthy widow in need of an introvert young losers affection - this may sound like a "Sunset Boulevard"-theme, but the misanthropy is gone, the Sunset Boulevard is an empire of Solariums, and the conclusion is as unusual as it is completely compelling due to the chemistry between Lie Kaas and Neumann.

Many people have said that Solkongen is one of the funniest films of 2005 and it was with that in mind that I sat down the other night to see the film. Expecting some big laughs. They didn't really come, however. They did occur but they didn't come as often as I had hoped. The story is fairly simple and this works fine. The characters are card board characters. You immediately see who is who and what the individual's goals are and this provides for a somewhat predictable narrative structure. In fact a little bit too simple.

The always good Nikolaj Lie Kaas is the main character and to be honest I wasn't impressed. His timing worked and the character as well but it wasn't anything we hadn't seen from him before. He has played some weird characters in the past and the character of Tommy is just another one. Birthe Neuman is excellent. Its nice to see her in this kind of role just to see that she can do that as well. Niels Olsen and Thomas Bo Larsen are both great and produce the best laughs of the film. Olsen with his incredible facial expressions and Larsen with his obnoxious attitude. Kirsten Lehfeldt and Jens Okking are criminally underused in their parts and I think the film should have been at least 10-15 minutes longer if only to get some more scenes with them. Peter Ganzler is the villainous character that you know from the beginning is going to take a punch at some point. All in all card board characters held up by great actors.

The script and overall writing is the film's main problem. The dialog is bulky and unbelievable and the story seems rushed and at times just flat out ridiculous and stoned. Almost as if the writer was on drugs while he was writing. The story is as previously stated predictable and that is a shame because the actors deserve better writing than this and I genuinely believe that the film could have been much better if the writing hadn't been so poor.

The film looks like a typical Danish film, plain and uninspired, so there is really not much point in commenting further on that.

Solkongen is a nice effort with great performances from the cast but the below average script does that the film never rises above an average grade.

6/10