2015 | Norway | NR | 106 min.
The tradeoff between self-sacrifice and artistic
commitment is cleverly explored in Yngvild
Sve Flikke’s directorial debut, which falls somewhere
between a chick-lit romcom and a bawdy
Pedro Almodovar-style romp. 23-year-old feminist
poet Sigrid abhors sexist clichés like women
who don their male lovers’ shirts after sex, and
rails about them to anyone who will listen in her
pretty little Nordic hometown. But her youthful
ideals are tested when a chance encounter
with a famous writer twenty years her elder
blossoms into an uneasy romance. Sigrid’s dilemma
is loosely linked to that of Trine, a heavily
pregnant fortyish performance artist who
plans to give birth inside a cage while dressed
as Marie Antoinette, and Agnes, a sixty-something
timber warehouse worker haunted by her
radical feminist past. Sprinkle in magical realism
and recurring cameos by cartoon birds, plus
symbolic slo-mo footage of butterflies, jellyfish,
and other animals, and you get a wonderfully
self-aware, spiky slant on rom-com conventions
with a steady undercurrent of cheerfully crude
humor that is sharper and deeper than the sunny
comedy first appears.