A MAN CALLED OVE – Review

Rolf Lassgard as Ove in the Swedish dark comedy A MAN CALLED OVE. Photo courtesy of Music Box Films ©

In the Swedish dark comedy A MAN CALLED OVE, director/scriptwriter Hannes Holm takes us on a roller-coaster trip through the life of old curmudgeon. Ove (Rolf Lassgard) is the kind of guy every neighborhood seems to have, the obsessively neat, angry rule-enforcer who checks up on things and sees that everyone follows the rules – all of them.

Ove cracks down on his neighbors during his daily rounds to check up on things, a habit left over from when he was the chair of the neighborhood committee. But Ove definitely is not a friendly neighbor. Basically, this crabby widower just wants to be left alone. Recently widowed, he visits his late wife Sonja’s (Ida Engvoll) grave every day, to bring flowers and complain. Suddenly without a job at age 59, he decides to join her. But people keep interrupting his suicide attempts, with friendly visits or requests for help. Particularly bothersome is his friendly new neighbor Parvaneh, an Iranian woman, and her Swedish husband Patrick (Tobias Almborg) and their their two cute little girls.

Nobody does twisty, dry, dark comedy as well as the Swedes. Both funny and touching, the film takes us through Ove’s up-and-down life through a series of flashbacks. Based on a best-selling novel, this film was a huge hit in Sweden, but this neighborhood curmudgeon character is a universal type. While we recognize Ove’s type, this dry and dark comedy turns him into a fully rounded, more complex person, and also goes off in completely unexpected story directions. This film will remind some viewers of another clever comedy about an old man with an unexpected past “THE 100 YEAR OLD MAN WHO CLIMBED OUT A WINDOW AND DISAPPEARED.” This film is a bit more touching and Ove’s remembered life is not near as wild as that one, but it has its surprises too, a life filled with ups and downs, heartbreak and love, and unexpected twists.

Two of the joys of this film are its beautiful photography, particularly stunning in the flashbacks, and its fine acting. Lassgard is perfect as the older Ove, glowering and suppressing a snarl every time he encounters another human interruption. All he wants to do is join his wife in death. Every time Ove attempts suicide, he drifts off into reveries of his earlier life as he waits for death – a wait that is always interrupted by something or someone.

Lassgard is not the only gem in this cast, although his performance and the director’s deft touch in presenting the sometimes traumatic events of his life really lift the already-good story. Filip Berg is moving as young Ove, a decent young man coping with a challenging start in life, as is Ida Engvoll, who sparkles as lively Sonja in the flashbacks.

Bahar Pars is wonderful too as irrepressible Parvaneh, a lively, strong-willed pregnant woman who shrugs off her neighbor’s grouchy manner. The cracks in Ove’s armor begin to appear around her, as well as her two little girls and a stray cat, that Ove defends from another neighbor.

The film is funny, surprising, moving, and even romantic as it unspools Ove’s story. This gentle, delightful film touches on an unexpected range of contemporary issues. In other hands, sentiment could have gotten the better of this film but director Holm keeps enough comic edge to rescue it from that fate, keeping it funny but warm, a little gem that will have you leaving the theater with a smile.

A MAN CALLED OVE, in Swedish with English subtitles, opens in St. Louis on Friday, Oct. 14, at Landmark’s Plaza Frontenac Cinema.

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars