Vi gifter oss

Romantic & socially realistic feel-good film, not about relationship complications (the couple get engaged during the first ten minutes), but with housing complications. Henki Kolstad and Inger Marie Andersen are endearing in the lead roles, and make us really believe that they are in love. The film's story is both timeless and closely linked to post-war Norway. Most remarkable, seen from 2023, is the moralism they encounter from several quarters, particularly from housekeepers and other authority persons. The film contains mild criticism of this, but other than that it is not particularly critical of the society or the housing policies. It is most of all enjoyable. As I said; feel good.

"Vi gifter oss" is one of the best examples of Norwegian film mimicking Hollywood's classic studio era, complete with extensive use of studios to film outdoor scenes, a firm allegiance to the now established rom-com subgenre, and the first signs of star power in Norwegian cinema (this was the first of many films which were to launch Henki Kolstad and Inger Marie Andersen as the entire nation's romantic couple). Still, perhaps the main reason that "Vi gifter oss" worked and works so well, is that it combines its Hollywood affinities with a very Norwegian perspective. The 1950s were in many ways the start of modern urban living in Oslo, when the parents of the baby-boomers settled in numbers in suburb apartments and found non-hard labour work in the city. This was when the modern working/middle class was born, and "Vi gifter oss" is a superb first-hand, contemporary document of this process. Writer/director Nils R. Müller's shows an impressive perspective and insight in this matter.

Müller's writing style, which is light and simple in tone and plot development, but at times heavy and cumbersome in thematics, is both perfectly descriptive of the era it depicts and ideal for the overall effect of the film. He toggles elegantly between simple slapstick comedy and well-portioned discussions and dramatizations on life as a couple. Despite on one level being naturally rooted in 1950s moral and social mechanisms, on another level these discussions have a timelessness to them which secures the film's relevance also when watched in its 60th anniversary year.

(Review written in 2011.)