The Crossing

While driving home in the country playing sex games with his gorgeous wife Liv (Stine Hoel Varvin) by the cellular, the successful Andreas (Trond Fausa Aurvåg) has a car accident and becomes crippled and impotent. His young wife leaves him and while alone in his big house, he receives the visit of a handyman from the social service. Wagner (Svante Martin) builds walkways and installs an elevator to facilitate the life of Andreas. Meanwhile Liv supersedes her trauma and returns home, and Andreas, unable to satisfy her sexual desires, proposes she has sex with Wagner. Liv becomes close to Wagner and discloses a dark secret from his past, and the stranger unravels the truth about him and his real intentions.

"Andreaskorset" is a great little movie, with a tense, dark and dramatic story. The director Martin Asphaug shifts from an erotic tale in the very beginning, it to a heavy and powerful drama and ending in a great thriller. The performances of Stine Hoel Varvin, Trond Fausa Aurvåg and Svante Martin are excellent, and I felt a bit disappointed with the cliché in the conclusion and with the dark humor in the last scene. This unknown film is a jewel to be discovered by fans of an original story. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "Jogo Perigoso" ("Dangerous Game")

Another one of those thrillers from the north (of Europe), that are able to impress. Yes not everything may seem like the best choice from the characters and how they deal with issues ... but it wouldn't make a great movie it it was over after 5 minutes now would it? And even without knowing where this was heading you can feel that something ugly and bad will happen early on ... and you will be right about it - sort of.

Very well acted and enough suspense to keep you on the edge of your seat throughout. Do not be squeamish and also do not mind nudity or some crazy things that will take place ... you may feel as helpless at times as the main male character ... and that is sort of the point.

Andreaskorset by Norwegian director Martin Asphaug is a different thriller well worth a watch. Ashaig has directed quite a handful of films both in Norway and Sweden. Script is by Eirik Ildahl, which wrote the brilliant dark crime comedy "Haed above water". (Filmed in both Norway and remade in Hollywood.)

Andreas has everything. Driving home from his good job to a house out in the countryside to meet up with his wife, it all goes wrong while they have phone-sex. Andreas drives his Audi TT off the road, which makes him paralyzed from the waste down. Along comes Wagner to fix the house so that Andreas still can live there, but Wagner is just not only the helping hand, but has another reason for being there.

This thriller is different and lingering in the beginning, but all the way it keeps your interest. Slowly it moves towards a much faster paced rhythm. Trond Fause Aurvåg plays as always great, here followed by Stine Varvin as the wife, and Finnish actor Svante Martin as Wagner. We also meet Sverre Anker Ousdal as the father Andreas never had.

I like the film a lot, but I think it's too slow after the great opening. A couple of things might be a bit unrealistic, but it's still a movie well worth watching.

I have watched recently on Netflix another thriller, from Spain, speaking of a nearly same topic: THE PARADEMIC; aka EL PRATICANTE. A husband who, after a car accident, suspects his wife to cheat on him. It saves as many surprises as this one, but the fall is not exactly the same, despite many twists too. Both features are inventive, sharp, tight and thrilling.

First a realistic depiction of a man 's tragedy after a car crash : in a wheelchair for life , the events just after the hospital are passed over : the discovery of his new condition by the disabled (and impotent) husband ,the physical therapy ,the wife walking out on him and trying to start over with another one ,all the clichés of this kind of story are smartly eschewed .

It turns thriller in its second part ; sexual desire is the main concern of the movie, with the reappearance of a manly father supposedly working to make the house convenient for a handicapped man : under a genial façade , this man is a monster , an ogre who "ate " his son as a boy and now imposes his company (and a menage à trois) on the couple ;as far as sex is concerned, the movie treads a tenous line between simulation and reality .

The ending may be crazy but at least it's original and makes "Andraskorset" a special case in a hackneyed genre.