nedtsoaptalk Review of Harry and Sonja

Harry and Sonja (1996)

Offbeat and Quirky and all those other art-house adjectives

[3/10 · 8 February 2011]

I watch a lot of Scandinavian flicks and TV shows. Most are really decent. Some are outstanding. This one just laid there for me. Look, I'm American and somewhat well read (an oxymoron, I know), but the themes that were being put across in this tale of two disconnected married people were somewhat beyond my grasp. Maybe it was very localized, what with all the social welfare state allusions to Harry's wife housing all the mixed-bag of refugees from the street. Maybe it pointed towards Sweden's altruistic nature of her yearning to move to Africa. I have no idea what Sonja's deal was. Her husband is a wacky, with a capital "W," mercenary, shooting red paintball bullets at passersby and commiserating with a sad-sap Harry, but he, along with everyone else here, is nothing but a cardboard "representative" of something. There's no real, 3-dimensional human beings in this film. So, if you're not up on Swedish life or are not quite in tune with their brand of social satire, this may baffle you too. Pop singer Regina Lund makes a brief appearance as Harry's unfixed focus of a mistress, and vet Per Oscarsson practically jumps off the screen with a giddy pulse as Harry's bon vivant dad, but even they can't raise the bulk of this stale 90 minute Odd-yssey out of its screwball tiresome morass.