State of Happiness

Although I didn't get to Stavanger until 1985 this reminds me so much of my life. The city, the people, the language - and of course fiskeboller! I even windsurfed off Sola beach.

Not only that but it's a great drama with great acting, production and direction.

Being of fan of 'Local Hero' (a film about an American oil exec visiting a remote Scottish village to develop the North Sea Oil Fields in the 1980s) I've always wondered if the idea had legs to be a series now the Norwegians have given us the answer - impressive, well designed and enthralling

I had read nothing about this so I had no expectations (probably the best way to approach any film or tv series) and I feel really lucky to have stumbled across it. The writing is naturalistic, as is the acting, the plot isn't always neatly tied up and concluded (just like real life) and characters are multifaceted. I love the late 60's early 70's fashion and set pieces. The sound track and score bring a lot to the mix as well. I love how it is filmed, the feeling of this Norwegian town on the brink of something that could catapult it or destroy it is expertly captured.

I really hope they do a 2nd series. There is so much rubbish being churned out at the moment and I'm always really shocked that tv series like this and for example Press, often get dropped after 1 season, or 2 seasons like Mindhunter (which tonally, this reminds me of)

More please!

I live in Stavanger , so I had great expectations before the first episode. It was everything I wanted it to be. Great actors and dialouges. I really look forward to watch the show further on.

After the first episode there is a lot of " loose threads" that needs to be tied up. A great start to what I predict to be one of the best Norwegian tv-series ever.

The discovery of oil in the North Sea brought sudden and unexpected wealth to a previously rural part of Norway; 'State of Happiness' follows both the history of the birth of the Norwegian oil industry, and the period of societal change. While some of the story feels generic, there were two details I liked. Firstly, the portrait of the canny Norwegian politicians who figured out how to make sure that their country, and not just the multinationals, made money out of oil. As a Briton, I got the idea that the founding of the State Oil company may play an analagous role in contemporary Norwegian mytholgy to the founding of the N.H.S. does in my country's. The other thing I liked is the way that the social transformation allows a number of the younger characters (two of them women) to find and value themselves; this plotline is well telegraphed throughout but still nicely executed. As an aside, although everyone is constantly bewailing the Stavanger weather, the story is filmed in generally much more clement conditions than we see in Scandinavian crime thrillers. And it's much more interesting than many of those.