Dramedy gets to root of suburban discord
It’s high summer in Iceland, but a chill between two sets of neighbours is heading from cool to glacial.
Filmmaker Hafsteinn Gunnar Sigurdsson has crafted an exhilaratingly sly dark comedy about ordinary suburbanite folk going from unglued to unhinged to ultimately undone.
Regular joe Atli (Steinpor Hroar Steinporsson) finds himself forced to move back home with his folks after wife Agnes discovers him committing an act of self-love while watching on old sex tape of a former girlfriend.
There, he finds his parents engaged in a test of wills over a backyard tree that throws too much shade on their pretentious next-door neighbours, Konrad (Porsteinn Bachmann) and his new replacement spouse.
The result is an escalating campaign of accusations and reprisals that drags everyone in, right down to the family pets, and things get very nasty and hilarious indeed.
“Has everyone lost their minds?” dad Baldvin (Sigurdur Sigurjonsson) wonders aloud, to little avail.
Sigurdsson throws in some nice stylistic touches throughout to create an alternating mood of absurdity and foreboding. There’s some lovely camerawork from cinematographer Monika Lenczewska that at times borders on eerie. The sonorous and doleful score by Daniel Bjarnason provides apt accompaniment.
The performances are uniformly splendid, particularly Edda Bjorgvinsdottir as mom Inga, who’s become caustic as she mourns the loss of son Uggi, who vanished years before and is presumed dead.
Sigurjonsson is also fine as a reasonable man driven to near madness by events beyond his control. Steinporsson has some poignant moments as Atli, a slacker dad who finds his life unravelling as he mourns his separation for his beloved daughter.
Sigurdsson does a stellar job of upending the mundane suburban existence and demonstrating the thin veneer that exists between civility and savagery in a dark tale that is sure to amuse and unsettle. And the kicker ending? Sublime!