Him and Marianne

Dive comedy flounders in the shallow end

There’s so much to admire in the Norwegian contender for Oscar’s foreign-language run off:  beautiful Norse scenery deftly captured by Marius Johansen-Hansen; clever special effects (digital team headed by Fredrik Höglin; especially lovable is the airborne Valentine heart—complete with an arrow of consummation—can’t fail to bring a smile); a colourful score (original music by Aslak Hartberg) ranging from a perfectly balanced Christmas chorus to steel guitar and banjo tracks that’s sure to be the envy of stateside Country & Western fans); some fine acting (Trond Fausa Aurvåg’s “Him” is dolefully wimpish and hilariously macho as required and his swim/diving sequences are first rate; Marian Saastad Ottesen as the bossy, spontaneous and faithless Marianne makes the most of an uneven character) and a Greek Chorus of advisors for the lovelorn who sport nothing but towels, jowls and saggy flesh in the après swim sauna).

Unfortunately, the script (Petter Næss and Johan Bogaeus drew the screenplay from Erlend Loe’s novel) has less intuition than Him is accused of lacking, wandering from scene to scene with little undercurrent of purposeful, if discreet, direction.  The outrageous moments work best (Marianne’s explosive dad is a hoot) but production never finds the necessary balance of fine madness/plausible actions.  The retired Swedish colonel (Sten Ljunggren) gets the line-du-jour “Once you understand life, you can’t use it anymore.”  Modified to fit Naess’ result it might well read “Once you don’t understand credibility—especially in humour—you can’t amuse anymore.”

Director	Petter Næss
Writers	Petter Næss, Johan Bogaeus (screenplay) Erlend Loe (novel)
Producer	Olav Øen
Original Music	Aslak Hartberg
Cinematography	Marius Johansen-Hansen
Film Editor	Inge-Lise Lanfeldt
Main cast	Trond Fausa Aurvåg, Marian Saastad Ottesen, Sten Ljunggren, Henrik Mestad, Anna Gutto, Thérèsa Brunnander