How stoic is stoic? Do you have to go full Spock, or can you lay up somewhere just shy of Vulcan? Is this a Swedish film? Of course it’s a Swedish film. Do you know another culture which has a reputation for playing close-to-the-vest in all things? I wonder if Swedes are good poker players; I’ve never heard such, but it stands to reason, no? Anyhoo, far as I can tell, Britt-Marie Was Here to give a clinic on stoicism. The audience reacts in her place for what we know she’s feeling but doesn’t care to show.
Britt-Marie has been married forty years to an ingrate. She discovers Kent (Peter Haber) is having an affair when she is summoned to the hospital and his mistress is right there by his side. There’s cool and then there’s cool. Britt-Marie introduces herself to the homewrecker, collects her husband’s shirt (presumably) to be laundered, then retreats to her house where she removes her ring, packs, and leaves … all without breaking expression. How stoic is stoic? Not smiling until Act III stoic. Britt-Marie (Pernilla August) stoic.
Britt-Marie Was Here is a tough sell for a standard audience because it combines a classic far-fetched Hollywood premise with no follow-up elements of a far-fetched Hollywood plot. It’s like watching a version of Air Bud where the minute a dog steps onto a basketball court the ref says, “No. I’m not allowing this.” And the movie follows with Bud on the sidelines. The far-fetched part comes in the next scene where, lacking for options, Britt-Marie goes to job placement service and gets a full-time job coaching a children’s soccer team in the remote one-horse town of Borg. Britt-Marie knows less about soccer than your average American knows about Sweden, but maybe in Borg she’ll be assimilated.
Not sure I’ve adequately described this. Here’s a woman whose life is entirely about keeping order in one particular household. There’s a joke early on about a rival who places the forks before the spoons in the silverware drawer; they can no longer be friends, of course. This rivalry immediately reminded me of another Fredrik Backman adaptation, A Man Called Ove, in which two otherwise identical Swedish men split –never to return- over one being a Saab guy and the other being into Volvos. Now there’s a Saab story. Back to Britt-Marie; she’s known and tended exactly one household for forty years. She leaves her spouse, takes a job who-knows-where, and finds herself late at night in front of a community rec center littered with trash on the inside and graffiti on the out. And at this moment, this mess is all she has in the entire world. You have to be heartless not to feel a bit for 63-year-old Britt-Marie, right?
So I know how the American version of this tale goes: the heroine is overwhelmed; when it’s revealed she knows nothing about soccer, the locals rebel and are disproportionately up-in-arms except for the one man who believes in her. They end up having a sexual relationship, of course. Freshly spurred by one voice of encouragement, Britt-Marie studies hard and suddenly transforms into the world’s best soccer coach despite knowing nothing about the sport just weeks earlier. Slowly, the children respond and eventually they beat the tar out of the bully soccer team from the big city (whatever that city may be). And, oh yeah, eventually the hubby shows up to claim his spouse and she tells him, “Eat it, Sven, I’ve get bigger lutefisk to fry.”
I won’t say none of that happened, but, seriously almost none of that happened. Ok, movie, just what does happen? Does the anal, orderly housewife straighten up her own life? Does she transform into a butterfly? Does she connect with the kids on an un-discovered level? I want to say almost none of that happens, either.
I like films where I can’t guess what will happen next, but I can’t say the choices here were an improvement. Ok, here comes the montage scene where the dismal motley crew of Swedish waifs becomes Manchester United overnight. What, no montage? That’s a relief, but the film has replaced it with … Britt-Marie almost reading a book of soccer rules and Britt-Marie befriending her new landlord and Britt-Marie sorta dating her new cop friend. Mostly it’s Britt-Marie going about her life tidying and pondering. We can see the worry behind the slate. It’s barely perceptible, but it’s there. That all is great, but remember the soccer team full of discarded waifs? It still sucks.
Britt-Marie Was Here was never going to be Field of Dreams. I mean. Let’s face it, soccer still sucks. But I had no trouble getting behind the 63-year-old woman suddenly out-of-options. Some might find Pernilla August too stoic, too much in her role to generate sympathy. I found just the opposite. The pain is there; she just chooses not to show it. I mean, what’s the point? Her entire life was owned by a louse. Take the louse away and what do you have? Not even the emotion to mourn the loss. I find it monstrous not to find the sympathy, or at least the empathy, to wonder how she’ll get along as a 63-year-old orphan. Hope I can be half as cool at age 63.
♪When I get older losing my spouse
In the ICU
Guess I’ll have to look for work; now I’ve applied
Everywhere I’m unqualified
If you send me to the town of Borg
To live in soiled laundry
Will you forget me, will you regret me
When I’m sixty-three? ♫
Not Rated, 94 Minutes
Director: Tuva Novotny
Writer: Anders Frithiof August, Øystein Karlse, Tuva Novotny
Genre: Life begins at 63
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Abused housewives
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: Sports fans hoping for another Bad News Bears
♪ Parody Inspired by “When I’m Sixty-Four”
