I must say I was expecting much more from this first of what might be a series of films with the police detective Aslak Eira, based on the novel by Jorunn Thørring. This one has acclaimed Nils Gaup (Veiviseren/Ofelasas/Pathfinder and Kautokeinoopprøret/The Kautokeino Rebellion) as director; and due to this I was expecting a well done crime story.
But what do we get? A quite boring convoluted story filled with horrible dialog and bad acting from those who are not professional actors. Stig Henrik Hoff in the main roles does all he can to save the rest, sadly without succeeding. The budget has been a bit above 2 million dollars, but a small budget is no excuse for making a bad movie.
This story could have given an interesting combination of crime and family relation drama, but it never manages do make the necessary depth for a compelling drama.
It's hard to find much of interest here, and that little is possibly the Troms landscape and pictures of Tromsø city. As mentioned, Stig Henrik Hoff does a good main role, but doesn't have good lines to say. But he does his best, really struggling. Without him this would have been scandalous. Lena Kristin Ellingsen is just so-so in her role as his partner. She was way better in the "Mammon" TV-series.
The girls are not up to it in their acting, and by this I mean all of them. Either are the male students. The main girl, the second girl to be taken, is not very good. I can't understand that it's Nils Gaup which has instructed them. It makes me a bit scared about his next outing, the important true story and Viking-film "Birkebeinerne".
What is the point with the title? "The glass dolls" ("Glassdukkene") is not something that is appearing in the film. The girls are not at all that fragile. So that seems just meaningless to me as the title is bad in the first hand. This is probably better told in the novellas, which I've Heart is quite different from this outcome.
This is, from what I've heard, the first of a series of five (!) films about detective Aslak Eira. Let's hope they do a much better job with the next, otherwise it'll give Norwegian films a setback of a bad rumor after several years of great movies.
What went wrong here? Bad manuscript? I understand that there's some thing's taken out of the story originally written in the books. I sense there should have been a underlying moral about taking care of your kids, but the way it's told, it's just lame. Stay away from this, unless you enjoy being disappointed! Low budget is no excuse for making bad movie.
