Together **1/2

Director: Matias Armand Jordal
Cast: Fridtjov Saheim, Odin Waage, Evy Kasseth Rosten

Like most tragic family dramas Together begins with a portrait of practical idyll as Kristine (Rosten) and Roger (Saheim) take their son Pal (Waage) out bowling to celebrate his birthday.
Between the giggles, friendly teases and hugs the family share, we begin to detect the underlying tensions between them as Roger later demands his slow-learning son to order from the restaurant's menu without any help.
Kristine quickly dispels this episode with a friendly joke and it becomes obvious how without her, father and son would be in trouble.
Two scenes later she's dead.
After this the plot centers on the tough relationship between the boys, especially given how Pal struggles to move on while his father descends into alcoholism and self destruction.
Pretty soon they turn into each other as the kid manages the house and even picks up his drunk dad from a bar after he gets in a fight.
The performances from the two lead actors are compelling and quite moving despite the film's shortcomings.
Saheim (who might remind you of Russell Crowe) is charming enough to make his pain and unquestionable neglect almost understandable.
Sometimes he convinces us that because of his role as a grieving husband, his behavior towards his son is normal. That achievement is impressive-if a bit problematic in sensitive terms-regarding the legal implications of raising a child.
Waage stands on his own giving a wonderful performance that manages to be sad, introverted and sometimes intensely ecstatic without ever forgetting he's a child.
The problem is that the director doesn't let the actors do the work and turns almost every scene into a soap opera waiting to happen.
He amps every element available to tug at your heart and stir your emotions robbing the film of an opportunity to work with more restrained Nordic notions.
Jordal never lets the audience discover things on their own and not only wears his heart on his sleeve but constantly waves at us so we can see it.
In one of the most effective sequences Pal runs away from home and recreates one of the most beautiful moments in Francois Truffaut's The 400 Blows (from which Together borrows several themes).
If you weren't sure what you'd seen was homage, Jordal confirms it by placing Pal against a French poster for the movie, which only works to neutralize the potential, simple poetry the scene, and the film, could've contained.

Max Manus **

Director: Espen Sandberg, Joachim Rønning
Cast: Aksel Hennie, Nicolai Cleve Broch
Agnes Kittelsen, Ken Duken, Christian Rubeck, Kyrre Haugen Sydness

It seems that every country in the world has its own WWII story to tell, in "Max Manus" it's Norway's opportunity.
The biopic is centered on the title character (played by Hennie) who became the most important leader in the Norwegian resistance movement during the German invasion.
As would be expected the film follows his actions chronologically with the directors amping up the action sequences to fill the movie with some suspense (even if you just need to go online and look up his life to know how it all ended).
Mostly touted as the biggest movie to come out of Norway the film tries too hard to tap onto Hollywood-esque sensibilities and the result is a by-the-numbers film, completely devoid of any personality or soul.
The production is handsome and period accurate, but the characters are flat and uninteresting. Resistance members are good and their violence is always justified, sometimes even stretching events to make them look braver, while the Nazis are practically demons or James Bond villains who say things like "torture like a symphony consists of different movements" before they proceed to inflict said torture on the heroes.
The Nazis only avoid complete ridicule because of Duken who plays Max's biggest antagonist with the right sense of vampirical sadism and elegant charm.
Hennie is effective in the lead role, but we never see beyond his surface to fully comprehend who Max Manus was.
The movie tries in the last minute to examine the loneliness of the postwar soldier (what to do? who to be? once you're no longer in service) only to end with a smirk that seems to say hey if they make a movie about you, it can't be so bad.

Reprise ****

Director: Joachim Trier

Cast: Anders Danielsen Lie, Espen Klouman-Høiner

Viktoria Winge, Henrik Elvestad, Sigmund Saeverud, Pal Stokka

Throbbing with life and passion, "Reprise" successfully taps into the feeling of limbo that comes with figuring out what the hell you're going to do with your life.

For twenty something, best friends Erik (Klouman-Høiner) and Phillip (Danielsen Lie), it's becoming writers.

When the film begins they stand in front of a mailbox holding their manuscripts with the hopes of getting published.

Months later, for Phillip the dream has come true, along with instant fame, a complicated relationship with his girlfriend Kari (Winge) and mental disease.

For Erik, rejection has led him to push himself harder and live a low key life that includes a girlfriend (Silje Hagen) he has decided to dump when one of his books is published.

After Phillip is released from a mental institution he decides to stop writing, while Erik begins to get the attention of a publishing house.

If nothing so far sounds original, it's probably because it isn't, but the way in which director Trier delivers the events turns the film into a time bending, mood changing, emotionally challenging account of the twists and turns of life and how a lifetime can be contained in an instant.

The actors are splendid and make you feel as if you're actually watching people who've known each other for years.

Danielsen Lie delivers moving work as the introspective Phillip (think Dustin Hoffman in "The Graduate"), he makes obvious that fame isn't something for everyone and that living up to expectations might be worse than a sophomore slump.

The energetic Klouman-Høiner gives Erik an enigmatic edge; you never really know what his intentions are and with the rest of the male cast he brings to life the ties that come with male bonding (including the inherent competitive spirit which can go from healthy to plain vicious).

During one scene he's hanging out at the beach with his friends and is surprised by a woman (Rebekka Karijord) he might work with. After sitting with them for a while and listening as they talk about pranks, make fun of each other and act carelessly, she asks Erik "what are you doing hangoing out with these people?".

He doesn't know what to say and the actor perfectly conveys the feelings of his character. He knows that eventually he will outgrow these friends (and this makes him feel guilty), but he also acknowledges the fact that without his experiences with them, he wouldn't have anything to write about.

Does he owe his art to his friends? Or is his lifestyle preventing him of becoming all he can be?

The screenplay by Trier and Eskil Vogt, is a delightful collage of witty lines, pop culture observations and more traditional "coming of age" moments, that honestly should make this one of the definitive films about life transitions.

It's impossible to watch "Reprise" without wondering about your own life choices and more than once the film will seem to be reading your mind (like the very adolescent notion that the mind is confined by geography).

Erik and Phillip wonder if it's fair to write about life experiences and in one of the film's best scenes Erik is placed under a spotlight that amkes him wonder if his words match his thoughts.

One could very well say that for Trier, the film does the same job: he might have drawn inspiration from his life for it, but it would be a disservice to assume everything is autobiographical.

Or would it? Does art need to come out of some random point in the universe? In this way, the film constantly seems to be writing itself in front of our eyes.

Infused with nouvelle vague spirit, Trier pays obvious homage to Francois Truffaut's "Jules and Jim", but it subtly moves into Alain Resnais territory, especially scenes set in Paris, where the barely there love between Phillip and Kari and the recreation of memories evokes "Last Year at Marienbad".

With a remarkable visual style, obsessed with all the what ifs, might bes and will bes of its characters, Trier does constant flashforwards, flashbacks and everything in between to try and grasp at everything going on in these people's lives.

Because of this, the film turns into a living organism of its own, shaped like one of the characters it talks about. It has a hyperkinetic mood to it that never knows what path to choose, it drags a bit in the middle when it gets melancholic and self conscious, but immediately picks up from this episode by doing what a 23 year old would: getting drunk at a party with LeTigre blasting on the stereo.

Vibrant, sweet spirited, restless and also very cruel, "Reprise" might not always get everything right, but never gives up. For a film about young people, it shines with the maturity its characters lack, but it's never condescending to them.

While other films would send us flying out of this phase with a loving pat on the back and the assurance that everything will turn out for the best, this one doesn't bother, because it knows it can't promise something it won't be able to fulfill.