Provocative Scandinavian drama delves into male sexuality – The Hollywood Reporter

Were you full of punishing investigations into toxic masculinity? Then the thoughtful questioning, sensitivity, simple humor and refreshing candor of Norwegian director Dag Johan Højerud. Sex It may be your antidote. Turning a male character study on its head with a gentle subversion of Remember What The worst person in the world As it did with romantic comedies, rejecting this wonderfully acted drama to deliver a tidy epiphany may leave you wanting more. But the inchoate, self-reflexive nature of the central characters is partly the high point in a smart film with a lot on its mind.

The first entry in the writer-director’s trilogy is called Dreams of love sexThe film revolves around two friends – both married and ostensibly heterosexual – who work for the same chimney sweep company. This profession may conjure associations more easily Mary PoppinsBut these men are not of all professions. They are methodical professionals providing a specialist service in contemporary Oslo, and each is pushed in different ways to learn that their sexual identities are more amorphous than they thought.

While the dominant structure is a series of intimate conversations, often two characters long and full of sharp dialogue Sex The film can almost act as a play, and the film is distinctly cinematic. When she’s not under close scrutiny of characters, DP Cecilie Semec’s camera lingers to capture the hustle and bustle of the city, with its towers, construction sites and gridlocked traffic. Climbing on the roof to clean the chimney can expand a person’s vision or worsen his isolation.

Neither the men nor their wives are named in the film or its end credits creep. We meet the men through a bit of sly misdirection when Haugerud sets up the opening conversation like a therapy session.

A company supervisor (Thorbjörn Haar) sits at a break room table as cars roll onto the highway through the window behind him, recounting a vividly detailed dream that caused him to wake up feeling uncomfortable. The character who initially thought might be God or Fred from ABBA, turns out to be David Bowie, who shares some basic principles about the human ability to recognize goodness and beauty from the positive side and injustice and evil from the negative side. But what really stayed with him from the dream was the realization that Bowie was viewing him as a woman.

When the frame finally pans to reveal his employee (Jean Gunnar Ruiz), there’s some dry amusement in discovering that the supervisor isn’t a Bowie fan. But the director never mocks the frankness and honesty in the dialogues of these two men, who are the heart of the film.

Even on their morning swim dates with a larger group, there is no trace of bravado or embarrassment. There’s not even the slightest whiff of gay panic when a sudden revelation causes the supervisor to view his friend and colleague in a different light. Whether this is realistic or the fulfillment of a wish is unimportant. All that matters is that it is believable in the central relationship depicted here and the nuanced performances of both actors.

The employee continues the discussion of the dream by revealing that the previous day while at work, he was talking in the kitchen to a customer, who looked him up and down approvingly and made sexual advances to him. The chimney sweep laughed and left, but after he got outside he thought: “Why not?” So he came back again and was on the receiving end of some fun afternoon delight. When his supervisor says he didn’t know he was gay, the employee says, “I’m not gay,” and we believe him.

He also shares that he came home and told his wife of 20 years (Siri Forberg), emphasizing that he doesn’t consider the breakup to be cheating because there’s no hiding or lying involved. She doesn’t quite see it that way, and although there are no hysterical arguments about infidelity, she can’t let it slide the next day when he just wants to talk about garden plans or take their kids to dinner at Ikea. When she fears he’s gay, he says, “Having one beer doesn’t make me an alcoholic.”

A key part of the experience was the husband’s admission that he flipped out when the man looked at him that way. One of the film’s more bizarre impressions is that the men want to feel wanted, not in any ostentatious way but certainly in ways that don’t quite fit the typical mold of husband and father. However, he feels bad about the pain he caused his wife and assures her that he has no intention of doing it again.

Meanwhile, the supervisor, who is singing with the choir, is puzzled by the change in his voice, sounding a little higher and a little constricted. The group’s orchestra leader recommends a vocal coach (Nisreen Khosrawi), who helps him soften his tongue, and tells him that the problem is likely in his head and is related to stress. Bowie’s dream becomes a recurring part of his sleep, but instead of waking up feeling uncomfortable, he begins to enjoy the sensation of being looked at as a woman.

There are so many layers in Hawgerud’s screenplay and in the performances of the lead actors, which subtly touch on the ways in which the laws of masculinity have held them back, and perhaps caused them to repress parts of their nature, particularly regarding their sexuality. They both seem to welcome a new sense of vulnerability, perhaps even a previously untapped feminine side that equates not to weakness but to personal freedom.

The film is full of dry humor but also poignancy and notes of melancholy. This is true of the transformation when the pleasure given to the chimney sweep through his liberated sexual encounter turns into shame, guilt, and regret after discussing it with his distraught wife. When she talks to people outside of marriage, one of them advises her to write down her feelings as a way to maintain control. The poignant branch of this comes later when her husband expresses sadness to his supervisor that the story no longer resembles his own.

More amusingly, he suggests to his supervisor that admitting that he had slept with a man might have been easier for him than for the latter to admit that he was a Christian.

Hogrod’s screenplay deftly expands his ideas about gender roles and expectations through the observation of the two men’s teenage sons, without ever becoming schematic.

The chimney sweep’s eldest son, Hans Peter (Hadrian Genome Skaland), gets in trouble at school for asking what other students’ parents earn. He also wonders why two strange women felt free to restrain him and his father to move the refrigerator for them, and then barely thanked them while they were gone, with Hans Peter tending to what turned out to be a serious injury.

The superintendent’s son Klaus (Theo Dahl) is insecure about his grades in all areas, worried that mediocre grades will lead him to a life of unachievement. He wants to create a YouTube channel like his influencer girlfriend, who shares videos about everything from makeup to menstrual cramps.

In one funny scene, Klaus sits working away — the image of a teenage boy at a sewing machine suggests a younger generation with fewer sexual interruptions — alongside his father and mother (Birgitte Larsen) as they discuss developments with a chimney sweep. Only the slightest sideways glance from Klaus at one point indicated that the boy was even remotely interested.

The only element that seems borderline strange – though still quite entertaining – is a story told by a cheerful doctor (Anne-Marie Ottersen). She tells Klaus and his father about a young gay architect and how his intoxication with the elegant lines of his partner’s back was compromised when the partner surprised him with a full, shoulder-width tattoo in honor of his hero, Frank Lloyd Wright. Typical of the film’s offbeat humor is that one of the sticking points is the font in which the name is embellished.

Musical figures throughout shape the tone and lubricate the transitions via Peder Kapjön Kielsby’s laid-back jazz, with its floating strains of pensive brass. But the most beautiful element was the musical performance presented by the supervisor with his choral band and orchestra. Appearing barefoot, wearing a puffy red dress and shorts made by Klaus, he leads the singers in a short song of praise before they engage in a slow, sensual dance, all swaying and loose caresses.

The camera captures the young trumpeter’s sex appeal, what appears to be a mutual attraction between the supervisor and a fellow dancer, and, most of all, the intensity – perhaps tinged with happiness? – On the face of the chimney sweep, the audience watches with his family. It’s a thoroughly personal moment with a compassionate, non-judgmental film that never makes anything clear, preferring to let us form our own impressions of these two men as they develop in ways that surprise and perhaps delight.