This is probably not the film to watch if your image of Norway is all fjords, glistening snow and affluent social democracy. The action all takes place in a drab industrial zone of some nameless city, the piles of snow are gray from car exhaust, it rains a lot, and the apartment blocks and even hospitals seem mass produced, to provide for the poor but certainly not to make them think they have much of a stake in society. Into this comes Ulrik, played by Stellan Skarsgard with fleshy face and lanky hair, just released from prison after serving twelve years for murder. The film is, on the surface at least, a fairly conventional account of a man’s attempts to re-integrate into society: get a job; reconnect with his son; find love, or at least sex.
But it is affecting nonetheless. I’ve seen the film described as a dark comedy, and it does have some comic moments, many of them involving Ulrik chewing food in a distracted manner as he has sex. But it is more poignant than comic. Ulrik was once the right-hand man for a local gangster named Jensen, and the film charts Ulrik’s attempts to avoid a return to violence, to be at least “somewhat gentle” despite the expectations of Jensen, his son and the sad secretary at the car repair shop where he gets a job. The film ends in the sunshine, with spring apparently on the way. It is well worth the rental, and Netflix is now streaming it.