Here is a well-intentioned but tiresomely glib piece of sentimental whimsy from Sweden, based on a bestselling novel. It’s similar in many ways to that other Swedish heartwarmer The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared.
A Scroogey old grump called Ove (Rolf Lassgård) goes about the locality being bad-tempered and disagreeable and enforcing neighbourhood-watch-type rules that he himself has made up. But we find out a little about his late wife Sonja (Ida Engvoll) and about the tough breaks that Ove has had along the way, which explain how this shy young man became a cantankerous old devil. Then some new young neighbours give him a chance at happiness and redemption.
The movie has lots of scenes in which Ove tries to kill himself in various quirky ways, but getting hilariously interrupted by the sounds of people infringing his little rules and regulations out in the street – of course he can’t help rushing out to object. Like the film itself, these moments succeed in being not very funny, not very sad, not very believable, and not very interesting.
