Mother's Elling

I loved Elling. It was a beautiful movie. Amazing, funny and touching. So I was really looking further to this movie. However this was a huge disappointment.

Mors Elling has different director from its predecessor and seems like a completely different movie altogether. It is a prequel to Elling and shows the events till the death of his mother, from where Elling starts. It is much more darker than the previous film and more realistic too. But in doing this it loses all the charm of Elling.

For fans of Elling I would recommend skipping this movie altogether and watching Elsk meg i morgen instead. It is third film of the trilogy and follows the events of Elling. Though even that is not good as Elling, it is still watchable and much better than this movie.

As sequels (or prequels in this case) go, "Mors Elling" is a good movie.

Everyone who's seen the successful movie "Elling" (2000) probably remembers that Elling was a bit... attached to his late mother (to put it mildly). "Mors Elling" is based on one of author Ingvar Ambjørnsen's books written before "Brødre i blodet" (the basis for "Elling"). It tells the story of Elling, living with his mom in downtown Oslo. She knows she won't be around for ever and in an effort to get him out in the world, and help him stand on his own two feet, she buys tickets for them both for a trip to sunny Spain!

What follows is a series of mishaps as we tag along with Elling through situations he's never been in before. Riding on an airplane, on the beach surrounded with topless women, the Spanish nightlife, befriending the Norwegian woman in the neighbouring hotel-room, etc. It is at times funny but never as light-hearted as the original movie. Here there is more emphasis on the seriousness of Elling's condition, and we rarely find ourselves laughing like we did with the first movie. More melancholy, and thus less of the warm-hearted air that made the first "Elling" so special.

But don't get me wrong, it's still a good little movie. Director Eva Isaksen is always great with actors, and the acting is as expected good, the story is entertaining, and it is surprisingly short. Around 75 minutes (!) and when it is all over I felt myself REALLY wanting to see the Elling-character again, now that I knew that much more about him.

"Mors Elling" is a prequel to the wonderful "Elling" from 2001. It follows Elling (Per Christian Ellefsen) and his mother (Grete Nordrå) on an ill-advised holiday to Mallorca. In the first movie, we saw Elling grow into an almost functional member of society, but in this one he is still a very sheltered man who is unaccustomed to the larger world. And it is in this respect that the movie suffers, it feels like a step backwards to see him as this unsympathetic, spoilt and selfish little man once again. You can only feel for his poor mother who is clearly at her wits' end with her son constantly causing scenes over insignificant little things. But one also can't help but wonder, what was she expecting? We also meet the friendly retired army officer (I forget his rank) Bugge-Høvik (Helge Reiss) who, even before they get on the plane, sets his sights on mother. This leads to some amazingly awkward encounters throughout, that ultimately only leaves Elling looking even more unlikeable. There's a rather funny scene on the beach, and Per Christian Ellefsen is still excellent in this role, but this feels like an unnecessary addition to the saga.

This may be the second Elling movie, but it also is a prequel to the previous one. So we do see the mother Elling here (and we know something about her if we have seen the other movie). Now there is also another Elling movie that I reckon is a sequel to the other one ... which would make it a double sequel to this one? Does sound weird? Well that is what you are getting with these films, so buckle up and get ready for craziness in a fun way.

Well fun way for some, not so fun for others I reckon. It is never easy to tell another person that they will find something funny and/or hillarious ... unless you know the type of humor that person does like. So if you've seen the first one and liked it ... well it is more than fair to say you will like this too. I felt it lacked a bit in comparison to the first one ... but it still is a good and funny comedy, that touches all the right (quirky) notes ...

So Elling adds another experience of Nordic Films for me. Not being familiar with the previous movies staring this special person I stumbled into this little gem of a movie. To my opinion characters are fairly good depicted and act in rather believable way. Add to this a nice plot, some very comic and also some tragic moment and it will make up the kind of film I love: you may laugh at times, you even shed the small tear at times and you feel the world is not as bad as it may seem sometimes after watching.

Very enjoying, I recommend to everyone who is interested in some good European cinema.

Punchline: "They translate the menu into German, English and Swedish. Why not Norwegian - the oil business language of the world?"