Rating: R
Genre:
Comedy Drama
Release Date: 11/19/2002
SubTitles: English
Run Time: 90 Minutes
Flags: Adult Situations, Adult Language, Adult Humor
Distributor/Studio: First Look Pictures
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
