Willkommen im Nirgendwo - Wir sind die Neuen

A nice little film with really good actors, which, for the most part, succeeds in bringing Stine Pilgaard's new classic to the screen.

The film works best when it sticks to the original material and fairly directly translates the book to the screen. However, during the periods when it tries to be a broader, classic Danish comedy (the cast is largely the same as in 'Badehotellet'), I feel it falls somewhere in between. Although the original book is short in text, it contains quite extensive individual episodes, and in a film adaptation, choices must be made about which ones to include.

I could have used more of the original elements, but on the other hand, I don't need the story of how the couple arrives at the boarding school or an 'uplifting' ending beyond what's in the book. And while the dance scene in 'Den eneste ene' (The One and Only) may be a part of Danish film history, there's no need to replicate it here.

I guess that the book, with a thin and kliché basic story, and many aspects, the poems, the Q&As, the talk with Anders Agger, is not easy to transform to a movie. Partly because the wisdom in the book becomes very heavy when spoken on film. Partly because it becomes fragmented, bricks of a story rather than a chain. The part with the hotel owner, is fun and part of it all, but does not really add much to the big big picture. The same can be said about the Anders Agger parts, and he is not much of an actor.

Still I think the movie is worth watching, it's fun, it's well played, you are entertained. But it is soon forgotten.