Hawaii, Oslo

"Hawaii, Oslo" is great, moving, well-acted and brilliantly directed.

I think it's a film about learning to love and be loved. About choices, about forgetting what one did in the past and moving on. About both accepting one's Reality and sacrificing oneself for the good of others...

The narrative is not linear, but we can understand the story easily. All pieces come together when the credits roll, and although it's a very pungently moving film, there is a sense of Hope throughout the whole thing.

All the stories within the story are finely woven, there are no plot holes. The characters are quite believable and every scene has a purpose.

I'm planning to see it again (saw it at a Nordic Cinema Showing in my city) to try and absorb it better.

It is a hot summer day in Oslo, Norway and the lives of various people are heating up, too. A young couple has just welcomed a baby boy but, alas, he has a serious heart defect. It will cost a tremendous amount of money to send him to America for surgery. In another place, a mental patient is set to meet a long lost girlfriend. His mentor at the hospital is encouraging the meeting and looking out for his ward. Meanwhile, the mental patient's not-so-good brother is getting out of jail and hoping to meet up with his sibling, too, so they can travel to Hawaii for a new life. And, finally, two troubled young brothers have lost their father and are hiding from authorities who may have to separate them into different foster homes. But, isn't their mother still alive? Yes, but she has attempted suicide on two occasions. How will these lives intersect? This film is a nice glimpse into the universal and unique qualities of life in Norway. The large city is beset with problems, as all urban areas seemed to have, yes. However, the beautiful, older town is a pleasure to view. All of the actors are quite capable and compelling. Then, too, the use of the kaleidoscope as a scene changer is quite marvelous and lovely. And, above everything else, the story is a woven and intricate winner. All film enthusiasts who love the extraordinary will like this movie. It takes the viewer to a place and time most will never see in person, but, will consider familiar and welcome after the final reel.

This is a remarkably well constructed movie that is fascinating to watch yet somehow manages to fall flat. The many characters race constantly around Oslo on an atypically scorching summer day (nobody seems to walk there, regardless of the heat and sweat, or to drive slowly) on their various frantic individual quests, briefly intersecting or passing each other unknown and unknowing, until they all come together magically in the end.

As others have already said, there is much in this movie that is derivative of earlier movies, but a good movie does not have to be innovative. However, it does - for me - almost always have to make me care about the characters, and that is what this one failed almost completely to do.

I cared about only one of the dozen or so main characters scurrying and caroming around the city like pinballs, and he was the least frantic, the most unassuming of them all: little Magne, the younger (and quieter) of the younger pair of brothers, played with exquisite, tender understatement by Ferdinand Falsen Hiis.

Magne was like a small but solid rock in this swirling storm of a movie, and it would have been been crushed under the weight of its own overwrought melodrama without him. To use a contrasting metaphor, he is like the gravity that keeps the universe from spinning out into nothingness.

Erik Poppe gets one star for choreographing this frenetic dance, and Ferdinand Falsen Hiis gets four stars for holding it together just by being in it. He makes it worth watching. ALL the adults are just too frenzied to either believe or care about.

This movie got rave reviews in the Norwegian press, and has also been a huge success with the audience. Initially I thought it was sympathetic, albeit very slow - with good actors and some really nice cinematography - but what was it really all about? The script clearly not very original, a cheapo take on the brilliant Altman epos "Short Cuts". OK - the director is in every right to be inspired by great art. But then I started to notice how much was pick pocketed, from the title (Paris, Texas - hello??)- the running character; and the need for a LOT of cash (Run Lola, run)- the angelic characters (Der Himmel über Berlin) - hmmm... the list just goes on and on. Zero originality here,the borderline between_inspiration_and_simple theft is stepped across too many times. On top of this, the director stresses emotions in a not very subtle fashion. I am tempted to call this genre " feelie ", as opposed to the "feel good"-genre so popular these days. Its not feel good, but darn close. The ending of this movie is almost unbelievably sentimental. No wonder people leave the theatre weeping, but this is a response heavily stressed by and wished for of the direction, something I find deeply disturbing - almost unethical!

This movie just serves to justify my life-long suspicion towards the Norwegian film industry and so-called critics alike.

I have seen this film at the Jameson Dublin International Film Festival and truly enjoyed it. "Hawaii, Oslo" is one of the best if not THE best film I have seen for many years. I was really moved by the honest and human story and emotions in the film. Also, the acting is superb and the story clever. I highly recommend this film. Also I spoke to Stig Henrik Hoff, what a nice guy and great actor. THANKS!!! "Hawaii, Oslo" is one of those films you need to see again and again and you will pick up more details every time you see the film. Just about everything about the film is harmonic, the acting, the story, the music, the pictures. I think what makes this film so special is the fact that there are only main characters in this film and they seem to identify 100% with their roles. Great acting by the two boys, too - they are brilliant, too!