Storytelling Review
by Jon Popick (jpopick AT sick-boy DOT com)May 23rd, 2002
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Imagine Of Mice and Men if George and Lenny were both boobs, The Odd Couple if Felix and Oscar were Norwegian, or Dumb and Dumber without the scatological humor, and you'll most likely conjure up Elling, one of the overlooked nominees for Best Foreign Language Film in the most recent Oscar race (all the attention went to Amélie and eventual winner No Man's Land). Yeah, it's a comedy about a couple of mentally challenged guys, but it manages to be funny without being exploitive or preaching the upbeat Forrest Gump message that, no matter how damaged we seem to be on the outside, we're all the same on the inside (in my case, guts, black stuff and about 50 Slim Jims).
Based on a play adapted from a very popular Ingvar Ambjørnsen book, Elling opens with the diminutive title character (Per Christian Ellefsen), a forty-something mama's boy, being sent to the nuthouse when his mother dies. It is here that he is assigned to live with the hulking Gerard Depardieu lookalike Kjell Bjarne (Sven Nordin), a similarly aged man obsessed with both food and pussy, although he's a virgin.
Two years later, and without much explanation, Elling and Kjell Bjarne get their own apartment in Oslo. It's kind of a halfway house, with social worker Frank Åsli (Jørgen Langhelle) checking in on the duo to make sure they haven't burned the place down. Elling and Kjell Bjarne are very apprehensive about the whole living-on-their-own thing, as they were much happier within the safe confines of their psych ward. The situation is made worse, at least in their eyes, by Frank, who insists they do things like learn to use the phone and, occasionally, even leave the apartment to get groceries.
Much of the first half of Elling is fish-out-of-water stuff that is made tolerable via strong writing, the whole Odd Couple angle (Elling and Kjell Bjarne - or fussy superego and slobby id - bicker like an old married couple ), and the fact that both characters are extreme agoraphobics. The second half has them opening their minds and venturing out into the world a bit, with Kjell Bjarne falling in love with a pregnant neighbor (Marit Pia Jacobsen) and Elling writing poetry and hiding it in sauerkraut packaging at the grocery store.
Director Petter Næss, who also helmed the stage production of Elling, has a knack for the timing of physical comedy and set pieces, and is blessed with wonderful performances from his two leads here. There aren't too many films that can be as simultaneously funny, offbeat and heartwarming (without a thick shmear of the goo, at least), but Elling manages to do all three quite well, making it one of the year's most enjoyable releases.
1:29 - R for language and some sexual content
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