Wasted Opportunity
Just caught this sleeper of a film and was pleasantly surprised to find that, finally, even Scandinavia's favorite oil-drilling sister is capable of making an intelligent film with excellent atmosphere. Much in the vein of Insomnia. Delicate acting, good set designs, fine direction (considering the cards it was dealt) I was easily pulled into this convincing thriller of psycho-sadosexuality. Only problem was the storyline that took the ball and ran about five yards before falling to the turf in a thud of predictability. Yep, to me the game was mostly up when after less than 10 minutes we see Anna in the doorway with Jon's bedroom doorway visible in the background. This happens a few times in the first half hour so that less than halfway through the film we no longer have any doubt that the neighbors are but figments of Jon's disturbed mind and the rest of the film serves only to downwind the denouement, filling in and polishing the backstory. There never really is a clincher of any kind. The real spoiler that ought to have ruined the story for any half-alert observer occurs when Jon leaves his building on his way to the office and we clearly see Åke's car still parked where he'd dropped Ingrid off the day before. Instantly, we know that the couple has either been killed or has disappeared.
It's such a shame that this director would waste his talents by giving so much away so early. An underestimation of his audience's intelligence? One can easily imagine leaving out such details and others (e.g. the re-appearing dinner plate)and further developing the mysterious yet credible subplot of the sisters, while at the same time pushing along Jon's descent into psychosis. Two parallel stories that tie together, say, in the last 10 minutes as in the classic thriller genre. Instead the director added ingredients haphazardly as he went, and in the end instead of being treated to a sublime dessert we were dished out another bowl of that same old stew with a just a new dash of spice.
A better solution, might have have been to establish a subplot wherein a background conflict is established between the two sisters that lures us into suspecting a murder of Kim by Anna but which ends with a final table-turning twist pointing back to Jon.
Easier said that done. At any rate, the drama was first rate, and that crucial s&m erotic scene done to perfection.
Side motive to this post: if anyone has a Top 3 short list for Norwegian films of the last twenty years I'd appreciate knowing about them. This film gave me the urge to give that country a second look cinema-wise. Thanks