The Swedish film En man som heter Ove was shown in the U.S. with the translated title, A Man Called Ove (2015). It was written and directed by Hannes Holm, from a novel by Fredrik Backman.
Rolf Lassgård plays Ove, a man in his late 50's who has lost his wife to cancer, and lost his job due to redundancy. He is angry all the time, and demonstrates his anger by berating his neighbors, and making everyone stick to the letter of the regulations of the community in which he lives.
You know something is going to change when new neighbors move in. The husband is Swedish, the wife (Bahar Pars) is Iranian-Swedish and pregnant, and their two daughters are adorable. You can see the end coming right from the start.
What you can't see from the start is Ove's back story. Life has dealt him some bitter blows, some of them involving deceit by the people he calls "the white shirts." Ove truly loved his wife, Sonja, portrayed very well by Ida Engvoll. Now he has nothing and no one to love, and he takes this out on the world by being a pain in the neck.
The movie has some funny moments and some tragic moments, and, eventually, they all fit together. The film is well crafted, well acted, and well photographed. It's hard not to like a movie like this. Think about the movie as "It's a Wonderful Life" in Swedish, and without Christmas. Maybe the plot is obvious, but it moves you anyway.
We saw this film at the truly excellent Little Theatre in Rochester, NY. It will work well on the small screen. It's worth seeking out and watching. (A Man Called Ove has an excellent IMDb rating of 7.6. It's interesting that almost every voter liked it, and both U.S. and foreign reviewers enjoyed it equally.)
Rolf Lassgård plays Ove, a man in his late 50's who has lost his wife to cancer, and lost his job due to redundancy. He is angry all the time, and demonstrates his anger by berating his neighbors, and making everyone stick to the letter of the regulations of the community in which he lives.
You know something is going to change when new neighbors move in. The husband is Swedish, the wife (Bahar Pars) is Iranian-Swedish and pregnant, and their two daughters are adorable. You can see the end coming right from the start.
What you can't see from the start is Ove's back story. Life has dealt him some bitter blows, some of them involving deceit by the people he calls "the white shirts." Ove truly loved his wife, Sonja, portrayed very well by Ida Engvoll. Now he has nothing and no one to love, and he takes this out on the world by being a pain in the neck.
The movie has some funny moments and some tragic moments, and, eventually, they all fit together. The film is well crafted, well acted, and well photographed. It's hard not to like a movie like this. Think about the movie as "It's a Wonderful Life" in Swedish, and without Christmas. Maybe the plot is obvious, but it moves you anyway.
We saw this film at the truly excellent Little Theatre in Rochester, NY. It will work well on the small screen. It's worth seeking out and watching. (A Man Called Ove has an excellent IMDb rating of 7.6. It's interesting that almost every voter liked it, and both U.S. and foreign reviewers enjoyed it equally.)