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ELLING Send This Review to a Friend
Here is a film that ought to make us take a good look in the mirror when it comes to dealing with mental difficulties severe enough to hamper everyday living but not severe enough to require indefinite institutionalization. "Elling," based on a Norwegian novel and play by Ingvar Ambjornsen, is a warm, sometimes amusing but always sensitive tale of two men who move from a mental facility into an Oslo apartment, courtesy of the state. It is part of a program to ease the mentally-challenged into society and help them adapt. The approach seems far ahead of what is attempted in the United States.
To the credit of this film, directed by Petter Naess from a screenplay by Axel Hellstenius, it is possible to get to like these guys as they struggle to cope. One is Elling (Per Christian Ellefsen), a fearful soul who has problems even answering the telephone and, based on his sheltered, shaky past, is plagued by fears of abandonment. The other is Kjell (Sven Nordin), who talks about sex almost as an obsession and as if he had had the world of experience. We follow their adventures from the institution where they meet into their new urban surroundings and observe the development of their interdependent relationship.
Problems and opportunities present themselves, with Kjell's world opening up partly through his friendship with a pregnant neighbor, Reidun (Marit Pia Jacobsen), and Elling starting to write poetry after being inspired at a poetry reading and his new-found friendship with the poet Alfons (Per Christansen). In some of the film's more amusing moments, Elling takes to slipping his poetry into packages of sauerkraut in his neighborhood supermarket. (Unpublished authors take note.)
Any change in the lives of these two sympathetic fellows, superbly portrayed, presents both a possibility of emotional upset and a chance to move forward. The film itself, devoted to an important subject, is definitely a forward step and an entertaining, touching one is well. A First Look Pictures release.
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