Following up on his acclaimed debut Absolute Hangover, Petter Naess spins this feel-good drama about a pair of misfits trying to get along with each other and the outside world. Elling (Per Christian Ellefsen) is a neurotic, shy would-be writer who still lives with his mother. That is at least until she dies, and poor Elling is cast of the house by the health department and sent to state institution. While Elling has no experience with the outside world -- though he has a very active interior world -- his roommate Kjell Bjarne is a sex-obsessed hulk mass of a man raring to get out. Initially, these two wildly different guys get along famously. Only when they move into public housing together do cracks develop in their relationship. Elling refuses to leave the apartment or answer the phone, and tries to restrict Kjell-Bjarne's movement as well. When the brawny lothario shacks up with the girl next door, Elling goes ballistic with jealousy. Does Elling accept his lack of control of the world or does he retreat into himself? This film was screened at the 2001 Toronto Film Festival. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide
Review by All Movie Guide
All Movie Guide
is neutral about it.
There have probably been too many films made about lovable crazies turned loose on the world, but Petter Naess' Elling is still a refreshingly good-natured comedy-drama about two mental patients trying to adjust to life in the outside world. Naess and screenwriter Axel Hellstenius adapted the script from Hellstenius' play, which was itself adapted from Ingvar Ambjornsen's best-selling Norwegian novel. Per Christian Ellefsen, who plays the extremely phobic title character, and Sven Nordin, who plays Kjell Bjarne, Elling's roommate, and resembles a hulking Scandinavian version of
Gérard Depardieu, both played their parts on-stage. Their long-term familiarity with the characters and material may be what gives their performances and the relationship between their characters such a warm, lived-in feel. At times, Elling and Kjell threaten to become a bit too cute and cuddly (one can imagine
Robin Williams playing Elling in the Hollywood remake), but Naess and Hellstenius leave them with just enough rough edges to suspend belief. They're aided by Ellefsen's appropriately brittle performance (particularly in his inappropriately possessive feelings toward those he cares about) and by Nordin, who tempers Kjell's gruff likeability by allowing us to see glimpses of a violent rage simmering beneath the surface. ~ Josh Ralske, All Movie Guide