kosmasp And not afraid to pull any punches! If you like your comedies dark, than this one will be a movie you should look out for. It is anything but political correct. It is borderline many times and has a few flaws, but it is funny as can be.Again only if you can wrap your mind around the crazy plot and the sometimes degrading humour. The actors do a fantastic job, it's shot a bit like a documentary and the music is really great. It's nicely edited and has a strong "strangely" positively feeling about it. I just loved the movie and I'm happy to have caught it on the Fantasy Filmfest in Stuttgart.

richard_sleboe This guy has it tough, no doubt about it. An accident put Geirr (Fridtjov Såheim) in a wheelchair, literally bringing his life to a standstill. Disability insurance has made him a wealthy man, but he spends his days locked in a darkened room, watching "Apocalypse Now", listening to "Folsom Prison Blues", doing dope and booze, following the example of the Man in Black himself in nearly every way. Geirr's girlfriend Ingvild (Kirsti Torhaug) tries to grin and bear it, but it's obvious she could use some help. Well, she isn't going to get it from Tori (Kjersti Holmen), an annoying Martha Stewart type self-help guru, or her flying circus of misfits. Instead, Geirr is about to teach the group a valuable lesson and serve them a "hot dog for your brain." Great performances. Extremely refreshing. Surprisingly violent. But these clowns, they had it coming. See it with your kids.

sirkevinho1 Very few movies are made about disabled people. It seems to be a taboo area that few filmmakers are willing to venture into, as they do not want to make a tearjerker propaganda film that manipulates people's feelings or appear to be too insensitive about the issue. This film does neither; instead, through realistic characters, it takes the honest approach and allows the audiences to examine the characters and understand how they feel without the filmmakers help. Thus, it makes the film enticing and provocative.The film examines the different degrees and dimensions of both physical and emotional disability and how it affects those around them. It shows how some people are down on themselves and refuse to improve or become worst than they are. It shows how those disabled can increase pressure and frustration on those closest to them, and vice-versa, how those closest to them can cause them pain and suffering, even if they had the best of intentions. Finally, it shows that acceptance, both the disabled and those around them, is a process. It takes time and patience; if one does not have the patience, it is better off if that person leaves.One thing to take away from this film, as it offers a great lesson: there must be a balance between positive and negative thinking. Being too positive and smiling all the time might not be such a good tactic in life. Just look at Marte. She tries to be positive in order to protect her partner's feelings; instead, he feels very guilty and does not appreciate her efforts. However, at the same time, being too negative will only sent one into depression, as Lillemor demonstrates. She is rather healthy, but because she is so down on herself, she thinks she is no better than the disabled people she associates with. Therefore, in the end, one must be both positive and negative. This way, a person would be able to examine the reality of the situation and have the courage to move forward.8/10

Chris Knipp Breien's film about handicapped people is a corrective. It mocks programs that offer false cheer, repress the need to express anger, and don't give people who need to do so the right to take things in their own hands.Things get lively as soon as Tori (Kjersti Holmen),a smug therapist who works for the Norwegian state health system, takes her group of variously dysfunctional folks in a van to the house of Geirr (Fridtjov Såheim), a wheelchair bound man who's refused to join the program. If she thinks she's going to win Geirr over, she's got another think coming. As we see before the group arrives, Geirr, who's paraplegic and impotent from a car accident, doesn't get along with his wife Ingvild (Kirsti Eline Torhaug) and likes to spend his time getting high, drinking beer, listening to Johnny Cash albums and watching war movies.Tori has brought quite a motley crew. There's Lillemor (Kari Simonsen), a middle aged divorced woman in a neck brace. Marta (Marian Saastad Ottesen) is a pretty woman. She is paraplegic too, from a mountaineering accident. Gard (Henrik Mestad) is her self-righteous, self-pitying boyfriend. Asbjorn (Per Schaaning) is an older man who is seriously damaged by a stroke and can hardly speak. Tori imposes a regime of forced cheer. It's obviously gone too far with Marta, who wears a fixed rictus smile. Lillemor is perpetually whining. She gets to voice her complaints into the knitted "shit bag," which Tori passes to people who want to say something uncheerful.Ingvild has invited the group over because she can't take Geirr's withdrawn grumpiness much longer and is desperately hoping they can get through to him. The surprise is that it's he who gets through to them. Geirr doesn't want anybody to try to tell him that things are okay for him. By shaking up the group and expelling Tori and encouraging the others to admit what's really going on inside or alternately dropping their facades of self-pity, Geirr releases a swoosh of energy in the group that flows back to him. It turns out he's a pretty together fellow. He becomes the leader--and the exponent of The Art of Negative Thinking. The group helps him by pointing out that of all of them, he's materially the best off. He lives in a big, beautiful house, while some of them are struggling to survive financially. Others also reveal what else is going on with them, that Tori's bossiness had kept from coming out. Marta stops smiling long enough to point out to Gard that his failing to tie her off is why she fell. On the other hand he needs to stop agonizing over that and move forward. Lillimor doesn't really need the neck brace. Asbjorn gets so involved in the proceedings, which involve some useful drunken revels, that he regains some of his power of speech. In time Tori is allowed back to apologize and the air has been cleared.The solutions the group, with Geirr, arrive at relate to 12-step recovery, which assumes as a given that people must help themselves and you don't know what it's like unless you've been there yourself. Nobody who hasn't dealt with the minute to minute hardships of being disabled has the right to tell handicapped people to keep their chin up. You have to acknowledge the dark side to get to the light. When being honest is the prime requisite it also comes clear who has been faking and who can get a lot better fast if they try.But this isn't some kind of instructional film. It's a somewhat theatrical happening, whose improvisational surprises at times suggest the work of Lars von Trier. The actors manage to seem real and at the same time somewhat stylized.This is a nice little film that somehow seems ideally a product of the angst-ridden world of the Scandinavian northland. But a lot of what goes on here is universal, and by no means restricted to the handicapped--or to Norwegians.Seen as part of the San Francisco International Film Festival 2008.