Basic premise - two neighbouring houses in the middle of nowhere, rural Norway. Very isolated. Very snowy. Couple #1, Kaya and Eirik own the houses and have rented one to Elizabeth and Sigve. Each couple has a child: Kaya and Eirik's Theodor is white, Elizabeth and Sigve's Noa is adopted and black.
Let's start with the children. Theodor is helping Noa unpack. Noa doesn't talk much and seems to be younger than Theodor. Theodor finds a book about slavery, tells Noa that in olden days, he'd have been his slave, then continues through the length of the film acting out slave / master scenes from the book. Eirik has taught Theodor to be disrespectful of his mother, and the 2 of them often gang up on her. I know fathers who are like this, treating their spouses so horribly, and teaching their sons that women are to be manipulated and marriage is about always being right and making sure the men always have the power. It makes me very angry. My favourite 'kid' bit of the movie occurs at Christmas dinner. Theodor has coerced Noa into a staring contest over their risgröt (rice pudding). Elizabeth has had enough of something completely different, and exits the room after dunking Theodor's face into his pudding. Hooray. He got his.
The adults are not so easy. Eirik controls Kaja. She's a sweet girl who only wants to be loved and he won't love her. Turns out he's gay. How about that. Elizabeth and Sigve have moved to the middle of nowhere for a fresh start because she had an affair. She is mean, calculating, and cold. Both couples are together simply because they are. Sigve and Kaja find compassion, love, and tenderness in each other's arms, which is wonderful for the few days while it lasts, then Elizabeth finds out, tells Eirik, and well, it all goes downhill from there.
The neat tidy ending is that Elizabeth and Sigve decide to put themselves back together again, so they pack up and head somewhere else. Kaja decides she will leave Eirik, so she does - she and Theodor stay in their house and Eirik moves into the one across the yard.
Here's my issue: the marriages. It all ended up so neat and tidy. I think Kaja's gotten the short end of the straw, but she never does. She takes it all in stride. I can see why she wants to stay close to Eirik - she's her family, and he does soften towards her, but only after his pass at Sigve doesn't get the response he was hoping for. I think what it boils down to is that we all just want to be loved and some of us will work harder and compromise more for it than others. I don't think being loved should be a matter of taking the consolation prize or settling for a less than acceptable compromise simply because having someone is better than being totally alone. I don't think the pursuit of 'happy' is waste of time but I do think the state of 'happy' can be elusive. So, I guess the moral of the story isn't so much carpe diem, as it's live in the moment.
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