At dere tør!

Bleak social realism wasn't just the trend in Norwegian cinema during the 1970s and early 1980s, it was the norm. And this coming-of-age story from the less affluent parts of Oslo fitted right into that mould. Reinert is a young adult without much purpose or ambition in life who steals a car with a friend and is subsequently forced to take a hard, new look at the lifestyle he and his friends are leading. They are smoking pot and drinking in parks, lambasting bourgeois concepts, and cursing at their mothers for being too compliant. In other words, rebelling more or less like youths have always done. And hopefully growing up in the process. What's pleasant with writer/director Lasse Glomm's film is that it isn't moralizing - at least not to the degree which was typical for its contemporaries. The characters created by Ole Møystad, Kristin Hauge and a beautiful Eirik Kvåle in the lead are admittedly overacted at times, but they come to life as real people caught up in their zeitgeist. A semi-iconic ending wraps up what turns out to be a balanced and at times even nuanced film.