Oooh, Hevn is a movie on earth

Hevn is for real. Unfortunately for the characters in this first feature from director and co-writer Kjersti Steinsbø, Hevn is not a pastoral afterlife but the Norwegian word for revenge. And like a glacier-fed fiord, it’s best served cold.

The film opens with travel writer Andrea (Siren Jørgensen) arriving at a remote wilderness resort that has just closed for the winter, suggesting that the Overlook Hotel from The Shining has perhaps opened a franchise in Norway.

Nothing about her arrival is quite right. The owners, Morten and Nina, welcome her with open arms and wine bottles, telling each other, without a hint of sarcasm, that her timing is “perfect.” And which is more convenient: that Andrea lost her luggage at the airport; or that Nina has a closet of clothes that happen to fit her?

Clearly, someone, perhaps everyone, isn’t being fully honest. In the early going, the stranger-in-town Andrea seems the most suspect. It doesn’t help that she removes a blade from her carry-on in an early scene. I guess travel writers, like all critics, get out the knives sometimes, but I’ve never seen it happen so literally.

The plot thickens as more characters are introduced. There’s the male bartender, the angry young female bar- fly, the town doctor and his teenage daughter, the local biker gang, etc. Most have strong opinions about handsome “golden boy” Morten, who is running for mayor as well as running the hotel. There’s also enough sexual tension to cut with a knife, so maybe it’s a good thing that Andrea brought one.

Hevn is a Canadian/Norwegian co-production, although I couldn’t see much evidence of Canada in front of the camera. No worries though — the scenery, as in the recent Norwegian disaster movie The Wave, is gorgeous. There are scenes of Nina and Andrea out in kayaks, with Nina mentioning ominously that the water is more than 1,300 metres deep; one fiordian slip and you’d be a goner.

Unfortunately, Steinsbø tips her hand too soon, which means that from about the halfway point of the film’s 100 minutes, we’re pretty much aware of everyone’s motivations and secrets, and the only tension left is that of not knowing who will prevail. There are also a couple of plot holes that are never quite filled in.

Even so, Hevn remains a watchable time-waster. Jørgensen is particularly good; with her unreadable eyes and occasional sly smile, the mystery of whether she’s a crazed individual with a thirst for vengeance, or merely a disgruntled travel writer with a knife, is one the film manages to keep intact well after it has poured cold water on the rest of the movie’s enigmas.ΩΩ½