A Man Called Ove

Rolf Lassgård looks like he is enjoying his role here as the curmudgeonly old "Ove". Widowed and now, compulsorily, retired he lives in his small community where he enforces the local by-laws enthusiastically whilst generally upsetting all his neighbours with his entertainingly caustic remarks. Lonely and increasingly frustrated, he alights on suicide - but one way or another it would seem that the Almighty isn't ready for him yet, either! Using some flashbacks of his younger life with wife "Sonja" (Ida Engvoll) we intersperse the timelines as the joy and optimism of that period of his life (Filip Berg gets the part here) with the sense of futility he experiences now as he feels entirely redundant. Those sentiments are only made worse by the arrival of new neighbours who are definitely not local and we realise there might just be an hint of xenophobia about our old gent too. This wouldn't be much of a story nor he a character if things weren't going to change, though, and the thrust of the plot gradually sees him exposed to things that are new but not unwelcome. You know he isn't actually the hostile and intolerant man he appears to be - it's part of his self defence mechanism. The question is - will his neighbours persevere or will they just abandon him to his melancholy. It's a gently entertaining film that looks at belligerence and bloody mindedness, but tempers those observations with plenty of humour and just an hint of encouragement for us to try to understand that change can be hard and nerve-wracking in people set in their ways - especially when that change challenges established views on race, or creed, or sexuality. He might well have the right ideas about social media, though...