Loving: A (too tiny?) Portrait of a Marriage

-->

LOVING  (2016)

Directed by Jeff Nichols

Focus features, 123 minutes, PG-13

* * *

Loving is a hard movie to review. On one hand, it focuses on the couple at the center of one of the most important legal decisions in American history: the 1967 Supreme Court decision Loving v. Virginia, which overturned anti-miscegenation laws and paved the way for marriage freedom for all, including same-sex unions. On the other hand, the film's protagonists are so ordinary that it's hard to connect them to the legal precedent that bears their name. Director Jeff Nichols has the problem of trying to make an audience care about a couple with all the charisma of the backcountry Virginia dirt from whence they sprang. He doesn't entirely succeed.  

For those unfamiliar with the case, Richard Loving (1933-75) and Mildred Jeter (1939-2008) grew up in hardscrabble Caroline County, Virginia. Although he was white and Mildred was mixed race (Indian, black, white), they came of age in a part of Virginia where poor whites such as the Lovings interacted easily with people of color–a place where a shared rural values and lack of economic opportunity often trumped race. Richard and Mildred were childhood sweethearts even before they journeyed to the District of Columba to marry on June 12, 1958. Mildred was, by then, heavily pregnant with their first child. Had they stayed in Washington, you'd have never heard of them. Instead, they returned to Virginia. In the middle of the night, the police broke into their bedroom and arrested them for violating Virginia's 1924 Racial Integrity Act. When Richard pointed to their framed marriage certificate, he was told, "That's no good here." The Lovings were jailed, pleaded guilty to violating the law, and were banished from the state for 25 years with the understanding they'd be imprisoned if they were caught cohabiting or being together within Virginia's borders. The film follows their exile to Washington, where they had two more children; their attempts to live undetected in Virginia; and the circumstances that ultimately landed their case before the SCOTUS.

The viewer's dilemma is obvious from the start: the Lovings—aside from their racial difference–practically define the term "ordinary." They were rudimentarily educated, soft-spoken, and unremarkable people–he a bricklayer and she a homemaker. Their slice of Virginia was one where folks worked on and raced cars, drank in roadhouse bars, and picked tobacco. Director Nichols captures the vibe of a 1950s world in which few people challenged authority, hence we watch Richard seethe at their arrest, but not question it. Not that doing so was in character; his manner was as slow as that of the countryside. Appreciating this film requires that you surrender to its languid pace. Indeed, one of the more powerful points the film makes is that the Lovings were so unexceptional that one wonders why Virginia would want to bother two such harmless individuals. The pacing, though, is also the film's major problem. Richard (Joel Edgerton) is a man of so few words that the film is nearly silent when he's on camera. Mildred (Ruth Negga) is a step up on the laconic scale, but it's a very small skyward stride. We quickly get the idea that the prosecutors are morally challenged. Folks such as the Lovings can only be viewed as threats when privacy rights take a backseat to artificially constructed (and bigoted) views of purity and propriety. That's an important lesson, but it still leaves us with passive protagonists who come off as victims lacking agency.

I can understand why Nichols wouldn't want to make another courtroom saga, but the focus on the Lovings as a couple lacks the dramatic sparks of said filmed legal battles. Nichols pushes the court case so far into the background that the most compelling part of it is the Lovings' inability to comprehend the legal system. It doesn't help that Nichols reduces the ACLU's role to something more akin to a cartoon than as a champion of civil rights. Left on the table are options that might have been more interesting on the screen. Why, we wonder, was there so little overt racism in Caroline County when other parts of the South are aflame? Is that accurate, or was intolerance there simply a can of worms Nichols didn't wish to open? We don't even know how Richard perceived race. There is a short scene in which he appears to have never given it much thought, but it's hard to imagine that even a man as unreflective as he could reduce race to a simple, "I love my wife" statement. There's also a matter of the biggest liberty taken in the film, the decision to distill the tension to black and white terms. Although biographical details of Mildred remain scant, she emphasized her Rappahannock and Cherokee roots and indentified as Native American, not black. That didn't matter under Virginia law, but tinkering with Mildred's self-identification seems more a nod to contemporary sociology than to historical accuracy–to say nothing of being reductionist and robbing the film of an opportunity to discuss the central fictiveness of race.

In my view, the best way to enjoy this film is to lower your expectations and think of it more as quiet portrait of injustice rather than a drama. Remember that the Lovings were legally married for nearly a decade and still underwent travails. If the film makes you think more deeply about identity, privacy, fairness, and tolerance, it will have been two hours well spent. Just don't expect to lose your socks over visuals or dynamic performances. That's no rap on Edgerton or Negga. Not even actors as fine as they can make a Fiat 500 roar like a Ferrari.

Rob Weir

The Girl on the Train Derails as Movie

-->

THE GIRL ON THE TRAIN (2016)

Directed by Tate Taylor

Universal, 112 minutes, R (violence, brief nudity, sexual content)

* *

The Girl on the Train is a pedestrian adaptation of a very good book. In fact, were it not for strong performances from the cast, this film would have been an early Thanksgiving turkey.

Paula Hawkins’ novel was a best-seller because of its often deft handling of the mind of an alcoholic and abused woman. It’s hard, though not impossible, to make convincing films about tortured souls. Alas, director Tate Taylor isn’t up to the task. He has taken a book that relied on psychology and turned it into a cheap stalker film. The Girl on the Train centers on Rachel (Emily Blunt), a pathetic divorcee who drowned her inability to conceive and her failing marriage in bottles of cheap gin even before her husband Tom (Justin Theroux) dumped her. She’s a world-class drunk—the sort who experiences blackouts, acute memory loss, and vivid fantasies that she can’t distinguish from reality. Were it not for the kindness of an over-indulgent friend, Cathy (Laura Prepon), she’d probably be homeless as well. Unbeknown to Cathy, Rachel has also been jobless for over a year; she uses her alimony to pay rent and disappears from New York City each morning to commute to “work.” In truth, she just rides a Metro North train and sips gin through a water bottle, her route taking her through Ardsley-on-Hudson where she and Tom used to live, and where his Yuppie lifestyle continues with a new wife, Anna (Rebecca Ferguson) and their newborn daughter, Evie. Rachel spies on them from afar and sometimes from close up; she once showed up at the house and took Evie for an unauthorized walk into the yard. In her drunken stupors, Rachel also repeatedly observes another couple and imagines them as her romantic ideal—until one day she sees the woman we’ll later know as Megan (Haley Bennett) snogging with another man (Edgar Ramirez) instead of her husband, Scott (Luke Evans).

Rachel has become as dependent upon fantasy as on booze and takes the perceived betrayal personally. When Megan’s body is discovered in the woods, Rachel insinuates herself with Scott and interjects herself into the murder investigation—an unwise move as she’s also a prime suspect as a stalker, alcoholic, and liar who pretended to have known Megan. In fact, NYPD Detective Sgt. Riley (Allison Janney) is pretty sure that Rachel is the killer and maybe she is—Rachel’s memory has more holes than a fishnet factory. To comment further would require a spoiler alert, so I’ll just say that the last half of the film involves solving the murder mystery.

There are so many themes that could have been plucked from Hawkins’ novel, including planted memory, abuse syndrome, the alcoholic mind, therapist/client boundaries, and living vicariously. Alas, what this film best demonstrates is that Tate Taylor is an unimaginative and heavy-handed director. He is best known from messing up another wonderful book, The Help, which he bathed in saccharine sweetness that removed all of the bitterness that made the novel poignant. This time he has done the opposite—he gives us paste-up characters that have no personality. They are “types,” not convincing individuals, and about the only thing we can say is that most of them are thoroughly unlikable.

The changes made to Ms. Hawkins’ novel are cosmetic. The book was set in London, not New York, and the decision to Americanize the action makes zero sense. First of all, Blunt is English, Evans is Welsh, Ferguson is a Scot/Swede, and Ramirez is a Venezuelan playing an Arab. I suppose one could make the case that New York is so cosmopolitan that it doesn’t matter, but here’s what does: Taylor is apparently so ignorant of police procedure that he doesn’t know that a detective in New York City wouldn’t be involved in a suburban murder case 28 miles north of the city. (An urban detective works for London because Scotland Yard’s jurisdiction reaches to the ‘burbs, but that’s not the case in the United States.) This is emblematic of the corner-cutting Taylor takes elsewhere. The central actors are very good, but this train derailed before it left Grand Central. 

Rob Weir    

Peia Thunders with Beauty on Album of the Month

-->

PEIA

Beauty Thunders

Peia Song Music

★★★★★

If you put Enya, Loreena McKennitt, a diva from the Met, birds, and theatrical Japanese folk opera into a blender and set it to “puree,” you might end up with somebody like Peia Luzzi. Think I’m kidding? Check out “Beauty Thunders” and you’ll hear what I mean. It’s one of several of what I call “earth songs” on her album. Before it concludes Peia’s vocal emulates those of recorded fowls and it flits among Shai Siriki’s driving oud notes. The composition is, depending on your point of view, either jaw-dropping amazing or just plain weird. I'm going with the first interpretation, but whichever side you come down on, you’ll be forced to conclude that hers in a truly remarkable voice. Believe it or not, this is just the tip of the musical ice berg. She kicks off the album with “Szerelem,” a traditional Hungarian lament before she becomes a Japanese bird. She follows that flight with a Scots Gaelic song rendered Clannad-like and then segues to the Celtic mysticism of “Dance in a Storm,” an original, but one that sounds like it was plucked from Ms. McKennitt’s repertoire—complete with climb-the-scale crescendos, dreamy ambience, and world music instrumentation featuring Mike Wofchuck’s ban-the-can percussion. In fact, it feels a lot like McKennitt’s “Lady of Chalot” in style and spirit. The next three tracks come from, in order, Peru, the Basques, and Ireland, and the final two tracks are another that feels Japanese and “We Shall Rise Again,” a quiet, prayerful reflection on the earth, people, and renewal.

So who is this Peia Luzzi who squats in the dark shadows of her sepia-drenched CD cover, a pile of stones meditatively stacked on her right and an enigmatic feathered staff planted to her left? A Celtic chanteuse? A European world music devotee probing ancient rituals? A vagabond Druid wannabe? Nope, nope, and nope. She’s a Nutmeger (from Connecticut) and a Berklee School of Music grad, though I’d wager she is indeed interested in mysticism and ritual. But before you toss her into some catchall category like New Age, listen to her voice. It rings clear and strong, and is ornamented with wondrous and beautiful things: small catches, breathtaking elides, and a range as big as the Andes. Even if you find her themes too abstruse for your taste, you are forced to acknowledge that you are in the presence of an enormous talent. In candor, not all of what Peia does works for me, but November’s album of the month is a place where originality, moxie, and beauty found a muse who is herself a force of nature. 

Rob Weir     

-->

A Progressive’s Guide to Christmas

Thanksgiving Day used to be a holiday, not just another day at the mall. I’ll add that to my list of things for

which I’m not grateful. The holiday season is when one is supposed to feel cheerful, charitable, and optimistic. Bugger that! I’m ready for a mass burning of Obama “Hope” posters and I’m in full Blue State Revenge mode. Progressives need to spend their holiday time and money as if politics matter. Each year I post on ways people can opt out of a crass capitalist Christmas, but this year I want to expand my reach.

Here’s a looming national fact:  Solid blue states are way more prosperous than the scarlet red ones. Let’s keep it that way. Here are some ideas.

Have a Blue (State) Christmas

Stop economically greasing reactionaries. “Buy Local” has become a cliché, but it remains a great idea. Do it. That doesn’t mean shopping at a Walmart near you. Buy fewer things and pay a bit more for them by purchasing them from independent merchants. If you must buy from a big store—or if you’re not lucky enough to live in a place that still has a downtown—buy from a corporation with higher ethical standards. Target makes that list; Walmart doesn’t. Check to see where the corporate headquarters is located for all products under consideration. Dell is cited as an ethical company, but its HQ is in regressive Texas, so let those laptops gather dust on the shelves.

You can Google—an ethical company located in blue California—a list of ethical companies. Levis have fallen off the list, but Oshkosh is on it. So is H & M, toymaker Hasbro, and cosmetics purveyor L’Oreal. That’s a good start. You can buy developing world handicrafts from Ten Thousand Villages. Amazon is not ethical, so buy your stuff directly from the manufacturers if you must shop online. Don’t get lazy and click on Amazon because it’s convenient.

The best way to make sure your money stays blue is to buy from local artists, crafters, musicians, and restaurateurs: original art, unique handmade items, CDs (or vinyl) instead of downloads, and gift coupons.

Music that Matters:

Folks think about music during the holidays, whether it’s to purchase it as a gift, or to enjoy as a pastime. If you’d rather have giant corks surgically implanted in your cochlea than hear a single bar of “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” or “Little Town of Bethlehem,” there are alternatives. See if you can locate Nowell Sing We Clear recordings to enjoy old English carols you’ve seldom heard. Maddy Prior has similar projects. There’s a brand new release from the incomparable Rani Arbo and daisy mayhem [sic] titled Wintersong that’s holiday music with an old-timey/bluegrass flair. Generally, albums promoting themselves as midwinter offerings are less generic and offer either self-penned or rarely heard offerings.

As for gift-giving and concert-going, once again check out the politics of the performer and the location of their label. I’m swearing off Nashville and Austin music until Texas and Tennessee join the modern world, though I’ll make exceptions for known progressives like Emmylou, Patty Griffin, Sheryl Crow, and Brandy Clark. A Google search usually unveils a performer’s politics. Alas, you can generally assume any white country male not named Willie, Garth, Steve (Earle), or Tim (McGraw) is a jerk, as are nearly all metal bands.

Travel in Blue Circles:

I have relatives in North Carolina and Pennsylvania and dear friends in Texas, Florida, and Arizona. Sorry, but I will not be coming to visit. I’m not going to spend my cash in your states. I know it’s not your fault, but I’m not going to empurple your red state treasury with my blue dollars.

Progressives have to start thinking like this. Need a warm winter beach? Don’t go to Florida. Either spring for a trip to Hawaii, or jet off to a Caribbean island (preferably not a U.S. possession). If the plane lands in Atlanta for an equipment change, don’t buy anything at the airport as you wait. Does your firm want to send you to a conference in Orlando or Charleston? Beg off. It’s worth having a discussion about whether conference states are consistent with your firm’s ethical standards. Many companies already eschew North Carolina, for instance, because of its discriminatory practices toward transgender people.

Apply the same standards when traveling abroad: yes to Scotland and Ireland, but no to xenophobic England. No to India until it adopts environmental standards higher than those found in a sulfuric acid pit; and no to Muslim nations whose views of women are straight out of the 10^th century.

Root for the Home Team (unless it’s staffed with Good Old Boys):

What are the holidays without wall-to-wall sports? A lot of friends tell me that sports and politics can be separated. Bullshit! Tell that to Colin Kaepernick. No, you don’t get a free pass because a horse’s patootie is wearing a blue state jersey. If you root for Tom Brady or turn the other cheek for Curt Schilling, you’re metaphorically sleeping with the enemy. If you are outraged by Kaepernick but sing the praises of Bill Belicheck, your morals are shaky. Ditto if you applaud Harvard’s suspension of its men’s soccer program but think it’s fine that Penn State still has a football program. Another blogger suggested that progressives should be on the safe side and follow hockey because it’s dominated by Canadians and Europeans. Not a bad idea.  

Be a Values Celebrator:

It boils down to what you say versus what you do. Do you care about working people? Don’t shop on Thanksgiving. Are your politics something you treasure, or do you just talk about them? If they matter, celebrate by not cheapening them in the name of expediency.

Melancholy in Words and Images

-->

Melancholy: noun: a feeling of pensive sadness, typically with no obvious cause.

Sure—that's the way your online dictionary defines melancholy, but this time of the year most of us know the cause. The shadows deepen, the last gold leaves burnish to brown and tumble, the days shorten, and the air grows cooler. As they say on Game of Thrones, "winter is coming."

I suspect that those of us who live in places where the seasons turn feel the pensive sadness a bit more profoundly than folks where the changes are less dramatic. It is said that there are four seasons north of the Mason-Dixon Line, but it's more like six. Walk through the calendar and January through March are winter, April is the season of unlocking, May and June are spring, July through mid September are summer, then it turns to autumn and runs through most of October. Then there's a weird interval that arrives just before Halloween and lasts until winter returns in December. Someone wiser than I dubbed that 'tweener season "locking" and it's the one that most induces deep thoughts and melancholy. You know what lies on the other side of locking, but you seldom know exactly when the lock will snap shut. Call it melancholy mixed with angst. 

In my view, the melancholic essence of locking occurs in shore towns. It's oddly appropriate that residents of oceanside towns tend to be very creative when decorating for Halloween. All those ghosts and ghouls are emblematic of the haunted ambience of places where boisterous streets become the silence of the sepulcher in the wink of an eye. 

The photos in this article come from Cape May, New Jersey– a lovely place, but a melancholic one by November 1. One goes there in locking season to be pensive, not to party. The old line about rolling up the sidewalks is metaphorically true. Mini-golf courses pack their windmills and concrete dinosaurs in bubble wrap and put them in storage; the few hulking hotels still accepting visitors seem especially cadaverous with their darkened exteriors punctuated by a few dimly illuminated third floor rooms. The occupied rooms appear so separated from other life that one imagines sad loners sitting in front the TV blue light in striped boxers and socks held up by garters. There is nobody on the beach and only the occasional jogger on the Promenade. The sunset is framed by skeletal structures than once held the billowing canvas of cabanas; cotton candy kiosks and pizza ovens are shut away in storage sheds. Mercifully, so too are the karaoke machines. The bars are silent, more trash than cars shuffles down the main drag, and if you can find an open eatery, maybe three tables are occupied and everyone seems to be talking in a whisper.

Locking season at a beach town is one of the few places where daybreak comes with a louder soundtrack than the nighttime. Except the sounds you hear are more locking activities: plywood being nailed to arcade fronts, wood being scrapped for painting, and loose shingles being stripped from roofs. You know it's quiet when your Prius is the nosiest thing on the road. I like it that way, but it's both peaceful and a tad unsettling. A driver can almost welcome the Garden State Parkway. At least it's an affirmation that one hasn't slept through the Apocalypse. 

Yeah—locking season is like that. Time to relax a bit, but also a time to muse and brood before getting down to the serious task of making it through winter. Still, it's a thoughtful sadness, not a soul-crushing depression—the sort that seems to brighten the first time the snowshoes get strapped on, and further lightens when the seed catalogues arrive in the mail. The attached photos are my attempt to capture in images what it feels like when Nature begins to lock down.

Rob Weir

Roddie Romero, Charlie & the Rays, Stewart Eastham, Jon Reynolds

Want some Cajun and zydeco filtered through blue-eyed soul? Check out Roddie Romero and the Hub City All-Stars. The "Hub City" is Lafayette, Louisiana, a place where the climate, the food, and the music are hot. Gulfstream (Octavia Records) features fifteen sizzling tracks. Titles like "My Baby is the Real Thing," "Ma Jolie," and "Rock 'n' Roll & Soul Radio" suggest it's time to party, and Romero obliges. The first is catchy pop-infused soul evocative of a Muscle Shoals/Motown mash; "Ma Jolie" has a swampier feel and some cool slide guitar; and the last song spotlights Erick Adcock pounding the piano keys with Jerry Lee Lewis energy. Romero fronts the band with robust vocals, guitar, and high-impact accordion, with Chad Viator manning most of the guitar duties. Toss in the drumming of Gary Usie and the bass (and occasional tuba!) of Chris French, and you've got a lineup that can make some serious noise in a variety of styles. "Donne-Moi Donc" is a jazzy boogie-woogie dance piece in which they keys are tickled and keep on tinkling; "Windmill in a Hurricane" is grits with grit; and "Po'Boy Walk" spotlights a hooky bass line on an instrumental bump-and-grind. And these guys know that when they wind us up, they have to let us down easy. The album's final two tracks soften the mood. The title track is acoustic and borders on tender; "I Must Be a in a Good Place Now" is quiet piano and vocals with hints of gospel influence. Call this one rhythm and roots music.

★★★★

Keep the good-times vibes flowing by checking out a young Seattle ensemble calling itself Charlie and the Rays. Not sure why they're called that as they are the brainchild of two sisters, Jordan and Rebecca Stobbe, and longtime friend Gracia Bridges. They list The Beatles, The Band, and The Dixie Chicks among their influences, though only the last of these is evident on their debut EP Black Licorice. Like the Dixie Chicks, the young women build songs around call-and-response harmonies, with a strong lead voice providing the bridge to three-part singing. To my ear, though, this is rhythm and blues music with an updated early 1960's "girl group" vibe. Songs such as "Just Say that You Love Me" and "Can't get You Off" evoke the party pop of the early '60s and some of the harmonies remind me of early records by The Nields.  "Oh My My" is an especially fun offering in which the horns and mouth harp jump, and so do the vocals. The only misfire is "Girl," which would probably work well on stage. It's the moodiest piece that subsumes the vocals within the aural mix that doesn't translate well within the restricted sound band of MP3. I'll keep an ear out for these folks, though, as there's promise a-plenty.

★★★

If you're a fan of that combination of Nashville and rock 'n' roll labeled "New Country," Stewart Eastham is the guy for you. His Dancers in the Mansion is where electric guitar meets pedal steel. This is Eastham's third full-length album—he also has an EP–and though it surveys country's three H's–heartbreak, hard times, and hope–it's heavier on the last of these than past efforts. Dancers is also a sampler of four distinct styles. On songs such as "Sometimes, the Road," "Pretty Little Songbird," and "The Barroom," Eastham fronts big production numbers in which everything from keyboard to horns and stringed instruments punch through the mix. "Barroom" features power chord choruses so pronounced that you could mentally conjure stage light colors changing on each down beat. Then there's the guy with a Hank Williams-like collection of honky-tonk material such as "She's My Gal" and "Leavin' By Sundown," the latter with the suggestive line "I know I wasn't the first one/And I surely won't be the last."  Then he goes Texas two-step style on "Lonesome Melody" and the wonderfully titled "Old Lovers in a Cheap Motel." Finally there's the sensitive Eastham that emerges on quieter material such as "Carry On" and "2023Miles," songs I found more impressive, if less fun. But Eastham keeps things on the lighter side. There's not much message music here beyond the downscaled dreams of the working stiff in "Fruit Cannery Blues." For those who don't know Eastham, his vocals are reminiscent of Dwight Yoakam, though his twang is mostly affected–he hails from California, not Texas.

★★★

When confronted with pervasive discrimination, Jon Reynolds chose the high road. His EP Generation Love is a response to having moved from Oklahoma to Tennessee, where his wife encountered sexism and the couple confronted racism because they have black in-laws and friends. It doesn't speak well for the Volunteer State, but Reynolds acquits himself well. In a quiet way, Reynolds uses retro moods to suggest how both music and social values can join the 21^st century. Musically, his EP is–excuse the seeming oxymoron–an updated throwback. In mood it invokes 1950s pop music, but with dashes of other influences: The Four Seasons, The Zombies, Iron and Wine, and Ray Charles. The 50's part comes in catchy pop melodies and the stripped down instrumentation, the latter often just down strums on an electrified hollow-bodied Ibanez. The Ray Charles part comes in the form of Reynolds' emotive, soulful vocals that sometimes rise to falsetto heights. The update comes when you listen to the pleas for social justice embedded in the title track, or "'63," in which Reynolds sings: "I believe you're living in '63." It's a clever double entendre—the style harkens back to 1963 and, apparently, so too do some attitudes.

★★★ ½

A Man called Ove: Film a Fine Adaptation of Book

-->

A MAN CALLED OVE (2015 in Sweden/2016 in USA)

Directed by Hannes Holm

Music Box Films, PG-13, 116 minutes, Subtitled.

★★★★

I approached this film with some trepidation, as the Fredrik Backman novel from which A Man Called Ove was adapted is one of my favorite books of the decade. Although the film isn't as good as the book (few are!), I'm happy to report that it's a delight in its own right.            

Director Hannes Holm is so faithful to Backman's story that it's pointless for me to rehash what I said in my book review, so here's the link. The story is essentially that of a misanthrope with a heart. To call it gold would be too much, so let's call it one that's been frozen, but that can be slowly defrosted. Ove is not an easy man to like, but when you discover the myriad reasons for his bitterness, it's amazing that he's only a "difficult" bugger rather than an impossible one. He's stubborn to a fault, and his need for order and habit is high on the OCD scale, but being a standup guy is not just his identity--it's the way he thinks the entire world should work. Ove simply has no time or respect for phonies, officious fools, dishonesty, incompetence, or people who butt their noses into other people's business. Nor does he blithely accept the dozens of small absurdities that govern everyday life; he rants against and questions every one of them. In an odd way, it makes Ove admirable. On some level, we might even be jealous of Ove. He's more courageous than we in that he's willing to choose the path of most resistance rather than surrender to those he sees as "idiots." He's often very funny, but unintentionally so, which makes this film's abundant humor a form of black comedy.

Ove would be content to stay to himself or, better yet, join his beloved wife in the grave. But that wouldn't make much of a book or film, would it? Nor would it help us understand how Ove became such a taciturn cynic. Again taking his lead from Backman, Holm breaks and reassembles Ove's narrative arc to help us see how the child is the father of the man. Although Rolf Lassgård is the lead actor, Holm uses two others–Viktor Baggøe and Filip Berg­–to take us back to the tragedies and triumphs that shaped Ove at age 7 and in his young adulthood. All three actors are terrific, as is Ida Engroll as the departed Sonja. In many ways, hers is the most difficult role. She's essentially a revenant and has to show us how Ove's light brightened and then dimmed, but her role is nearly wordless. When she must, Ms. Engroll communicates enormous amounts of information through gestures so small that it's only later we realize what she's told us.

Wordlessness is not something one would associate with Parvaneh (Bahr Pars), Ove's meddlesome new neighbor who won't take "Go away!" for an answer. It becomes her role—and that of a scruffy cat—to put some cracks in Ove's shellacked exterior, which she does through a combination of charm and countervailing stubborness. It is, however, a testament to both Backman and Holm that Ove cracks but never breaks. A Man called Ove is very sweet in places, but there is no Hallmark Channel magival transformation or mystical conversion experience. Ove remains Ove, even when a lot of his misanthropy gets redirected at those who deserve to be targets.  

The Swedes seem to excel at making slice-of-life small films that are, at once, quirky, darkly funny, and tragic, yet oddly life affirming. Place this one is the same category as films such as My Life as a Dog; Egg! Egg! A Hardboiled Story, Simple Simon, and The Hundred-year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared. As for A Man Called Ove, I shall redux my book review defense of cliché: "You'll laugh; you'll cry."

Rob Weir