To label a film ‘charming’ is often to damn with faint praise but this is an excellent light romantic comedy, made with genuine wit and intelligence. After so many ‘dark’ or leftfield Icelandic comedies, it’s a pleasant surprise to find one so different. Perhaps it is Maximilian Hult the Swedish director of this Nordic co-production that makes the difference?
Óskar (Björn Thors) and Maggi (Jóel Sæmundsson) are brothers with opposite views on developing relationships with women. Óskar, the older at around 40, seems diffident in the extreme, even when he seems to have re-kindled an emotional contact with Anna (Sara Dögg Ásgeirsdóttir), a local vet at the practice where he takes his pug Otto. Maggi has a new girlfriend every few months, seemingly unable to hang on to any of them for any length of time. The film’s plot has an unusual narrative mechanism. The brothers at first have separate apartments but Maggi loses another girlfriend and in this case his home. At the same time, Óskar decides to swap homes with his father and stepmother and moves back into the family home. Maggi soon finds both a new apartment and various new girlfriends but most of the narrative concerns Óskar.
Much of the comedy surrounds the antics of two young teen goths, both called Danni, who turn up at Óskar’s new home and become besotted with Otto. Óskar accepts them as dogsitters and generally treats them like grown-ups (a praiseworthy trait in many ways – but liable to disaster). Maggi has a rather different relationship with the 17 year-old sister of one of the Dannis. Of course he didn’t realise how old the art student was. If I detail just one of the comedy moments it might give you a flavour of the film. The two Dannis find a packet of cigarettes and a lighter but don’t really know how to light a cigarette and announce that they must be ‘expired’. It shouldn’t work but it’s an original idea and in the context it does (see in the trailer below).
There are elements of the family melodrama here as well. The brothers have lost their mother and don’t 100% get on with their stepmother. Perhaps they have a stronger bond between them than with prospective girlfriends? There is at least one ‘drama’ moment. I don’t know how well the director knew Iceland before he started work on the script but the film ‘feels’ Icelandic on the basis of Icelandic narratives I’ve come across. There is a concern for the lives of the elderly as well as those in their thirties and the social gatherings have a distinctive tone.
I’m not aware of any UK deals for Pity the Lovers which is a shame. The problem would be to sell an Icelandic romcom to a UK audience. Once in their seats in a cinema I’m sure those audiences would enjoy the film as much as I did. It is quite long for a romcom at 105 mins., but I feel the pace is well judged. Also it doesn’t follow all the romcom conventions – another reason to enjoy it?
The Case for Global Film 