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KARLOVY VARY 2012

The Almost Man arrives in Karlovy Vary

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- As the awkward-sounding title suggests, it is about a man who, though in his thirties and soon to become a father, isn’t quite a man himself yet

The Norwegian competition entry at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival, currently under way in the eponymous spa town in the Czech Republic, is The Almost Man.

The second feature by director Martin Lund, after the franchise title Twigson Ties the Knot, was written and directed by Lund. As the awkward-sounding title suggests, it is about a man who, though in his thirties and soon to become a father, isn’t quite a man himself yet.

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Henrik (Henrik Rafaelsen, who recently starred in the Norwegian hit film Happy, Happy [+see also:
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, has just moved into a new home with his girlfriend of several years, Tone (Janne Heltberg Haarseth), and has begun a new job. The couple are still very much in love and everything seems to be going fine, except that once in a while, Henrik has child-like, unexplainable impulses to do something strange or stupid.

Most of the time these are harmless but, after a party where most of the people are from Tone’s work and he feels left out, even though the party is at his own house, he commits an act so childish and inexplicable that it comes between him and Tone.

In the strong screenplay, vividly brought to life by terrific actors Rafaelsen and Haarseth, what remains unsaid is just as important as what is spoken and some things, especially non-verbal behavior, cannot always be reasonably or logically explained. It is exactly this that the film tries to render visible, which it does with lucidity and wit, painting a much more nuanced picture of the arrested development of the human male than many US productions on the same subject.

The film was produced by Ruben Thorkildsen for Ape&Bjørn AS. International sales are handled by Danish outfit LevelK.

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