User reviews

Written on my phone ... I taped this from my tv and since enjoyed it twice.

It's slow paced, It's different, It sends messages about what is important.

It won't please everyone, but only a few I believe.

Don't worry too much about facts; I checked about horses longevity and the record was 65 years. But in average it was 25 to 30. However cinema is entitled some liberty.

I found the characters very interesting with their variety of behaviours. I have never had anything to do with Norway and so have no much insight in their custom. But I have lived in rural France in a fairly small community. As such I can associate with some comportement depicted in this movie.

Follow the Grande family lineage from 1943 as war saboteurs and their thrill to make a loud bang. Life has its ups and downs for Johan where dynamite as well as the worlds supposedly best cake, Kvæfjordkake play important parts. Not to forget the horse Ella.

Dark humour and Johans bittersweet life intertwine with a reminder to be kind to one another. Johan could have easily filled the spot as the worlds worst person from Titran, a spin on another great movie.

Love the filmed Frøya coastline we have been fortunate to cherish for years hiking and kayaking.

Screenwriter Erlend Loe has written several books, where L and Doppler stand out worth reading.

Totally outstanding movie, from my point of view. Maybe it's hard for people in general to understand, but for me who is born and raised in a very small, similar place as the scenery for this movie, I recognize so much of the typical behaviour when someone stands out and are a little different from the "normal". In Norway that is really not ok.. and you will be looked upon as a weirdo, no matter what you do. I watched this movie at the cinema with my daughter, and we both had the very best time, and both agree that it is the best norwegian movie we have ever seen!

This movie gives the famous "Jante" a solid kick in the balls. The joy of life is to be honest to yourself and do whatever makes you happy. It also helps to watch such a hunk playing the main character ;) 11 of 10!

You really need to love seeing light-hearted tragedies and cruelties piled on very, very thick to enjoy this quirky, episodic comedy. Whenever some happiness comes to poor Johan, you can be sure that it will be fleeting and that fate's revenge for that joy will last for years or decades.

Maybe it's a cultural thing....

These elements are in almost every Norwegian movie post-2000 including Everybody hates Johan:

1) An unsympathetic, sexually frustrated, emotionally stunted man at odds with the "Jante Law" or bygdedyret (the small-town mentality).

2) Low stakes.

3) Events happen, but there is no real plot.

4) Weird moral choices and alien psychology/motivations.

5) Nature and silence.

6) Nothing of value at its core.

7)"It's just like real life" as an excuse to make a boring, sad movie about nothing.

At one point, I paused the movie in anger. It was so frustrating to watch event after event unfold ("this happens, then this happens, then this"), often tragic and pointless. It seems the soul of the character is revealed through his love of nature, emphasised by a well-placed swear word. That's the character. A stoic (or emotionally distant) man who loves to blow stuff up.

When the movie ended, I felt just as numb as the main character. What have I been watching?

By Norwegian standards, this is a mass-produced movie. It has all the tropes. By the end, I was ambivalent. There were, as in most movies, certain things and characters I liked, but the "story" is "driven" by stupidity, apathy, and vague feelings.

"But it's just like real life! Things just happen." I guess that will be the counterargument here. Yeah, and almost every Norwegian movie is like this-low stakes, a "character study" of a man of no importance.

Without going into spoilers, I'm sure many will claim the ending created true connections and is more emotionally resonant than the rest of the movie. But so many bad choices were made, so much time was wasted, only to end on the same note.

I suppose I could rate it as an "art film," where themes and mood take precedence over entertainment value. But from a Norwegian perspective, it feels mass-produced, with a message that has been told many times before: "Just exist, learn nothing, and then you die."