TIFF Report:  GONE WITH THE WOMAN Review

Our hero is a single, nameless man of indeterminate age – is he in his twenties?  thirties? – with a minimal social life and dead end job.  His is a simple life, one of bemused detachment but for one thing.  Or, rather, one person.  Marianne.  She simply started ‘coming around’.  At first infrequently, but soon every day.  Always in the evening. Always talking, talking, talking … talking about peace, talking about harmony, talking about silence.  Isn’t silence wonderful?  Have you ever noticed that there’s a silence that can only be shared between two people?  Can you hear the silence?  Can you? Can you? Can you?

What’s a single guy to do with a not-ugly woman who simply won’t leave him alone?  Send her away?  No, that would require too much effort.  Better to run away, run to the pool to work out your confusion with exercise and the wisdom of generations passed down by mostly naked, sweaty men in the communal sauna.  The naked commune agree, of course, that the only thing to do is sleep with her. 

And so begins the ongoing relationship between our nameless hero and Marianne, a relationship driven by her strange and arbitrary demands and our hero’s befuddled willingness to simply play along.  Based on a popular Norwegian novel Petter Næss’ film is the sort of rom-com that seldom gets made on these shores, one that is not only told from the male perspective – meaning it recognizes the ridiculousness inherent in most of these situations and the behavior of both parties – but also in that it aims slightly higher than most.  Næss has a stellar eye, frequently dipping into western tropes and Jeunet-inspired flights of fantasy, his lead (Trond Fausa Aurvåg from The Botersome Man) is eminently likable, and the basic scenarios are often uncomfortably familiar, absurdly though they might be played.  And, if nothing else, Næss deserves full marks for bringing the iconic Peter Stormare back to northern Europe to play Glenn, the defacto leader of the naked sauna men.

The film stumbles on two significant fronts, however.  One is an over reliance on voice over, a risky choice that makes a certain amount of sense as it allowed Næss to work in more of the source novel’s stellar writing than he would other wise have been allowed but one that ultimately breaks the flow of the picture and distances us from the lead player.  Rather than experiencing with him we are forced to observe him from a distance. Second, and just as critically, is a portrayal of Marianne as little more than a caricature.  Yes, it works incredibly well in small chunks, allowing for some inspired bits of comedy, but it guts her character of any real emotional depth over the long haul.

And that really sums up the film.  Taken in segments it is frequently brilliant but taken as a whole it is strangely flat.  It is a film that could, and arguably should, have been much better than it is given the ingredients used and one that seems a prime target for foreign remake but it never quite capitalizes on its premise.