jennyhuizen Essentially perfect in every way. Compelling, dramatic without being overdone or predictable. Shot with the most honesty I've seen in a film in years. While the ending was rather abrupt and unexpected, in many ways there would have been no other way to truly end such a film. The flashes between time work flawlessly here and grasp themselves together in an uncommon way. There are moments, such as Erik and Kari's silent scene on the train in Paris, where it really does feel as if what you are watching is something very private and real and the following sex scene almost makes one want to look away. I think we can expect a lot more from this director and much of the cast. Even if independent films are not your film of choice, this one is easy enough to get into and plain enough for non-indie film buffs to love.

Steve Schonberger Philip (Anders Danielsen Lie) and Erik (Espen Klouman-Høiner) are friends, both writers, both fans of elder writer Sten Egil Dahl (Sigmund Sæverud). They finish their books around the same time, and dare to submit them only by dropping them into the mailbox at the same time.While awaiting a reply, they hang out with their guy friends, a superficial bunch of misogynists who think girlfriends are a drag on creativity, free time, and ability to be interesting. IMDb lists Henning (Henrik Elvestad), Lars (Christian Rubeck), Morten (Odd Magnus Williamson), Jan Eivind (Henrik Mestad), and Geir (Pål Stokka), but I couldn't keep them all straight.Philip's book is accepted; Erik's is not. But while Erik suffers self-doubt and possibly, Philip suffers a nervous breakdown.A voice-over narrator (Eindride Eidsvold) blames Philip's nervous breakdown on his obsessive love for his girlfriend Kari (Viktoria Winge), who is advised not to visit him in the mental hospital to avoid making him worse. He reminisces about the trip he took her on to Paris, where he tricked her into falling in love with him, as he remembered it.SPOILER PARAGRAPH: Meanwhile, Erik manages to beat his book into publishable condition, and his editor Johanne (Rebekka Karijord) tries to talk him out of his title, Prosopopeia, which the editor considers too obscure. (The film doesn't ever define it; I had to look it up. It's a Greek word meaning "anthropomorphism" or "personification".) When it sells, he feels obligated to dump his girlfriend Lillian (Silje Hagen), apparently thinking himself too good for her once he's a published author. But he wimps out, and sticks with her.When Philip has recovered enough to be released from the mental hospital, they go back to their routine with the annoying guy friends. He tries to write another book. Kari and Philip meet up again, and they go back to Paris in hopes of repeating the falling-in-love trip (apparently the "reprise" of the title, which means roughly the same thing in Norwegian).Near the end, someone dies.Director Joachim Trier uses a style that is distinctive, but I'm not sure it's good. In most shots with more than one person, he frames the people just a little too tightly, with backs of heads in two-shots crowded out, and people on edges of group shots only half in the frame. Every scene seems to have a desaturated blue color to it. To the film's credit, the shots are in focus, and although most or all shots are hand-held they're steady. I rate the directing fair (5).The director and Eskil Vogt wrote the script. Although the directing isn't much good, the script is the film's worst weakness. Philip is mentally ill, which could make him an interesting subject for a film, but all the film does with his illness is show him enter and leave a mental hospital, and fail to write a decent second book. Erik struggles with his self-doubt and apparent lesser writing talent, but the film's presentation of him is so vague that his struggles aren't interesting either. Their literary idol is vaguely interesting in his brief screen time, but he's a bit part at best. Their male friends are unlikeable, but not in an interesting way – they're just a bunch of guys who hang around and complain about women.The most interesting characters are the three women. Kari is the best-developed character in the film, even though she gets less screen time than Philip or Erik. Johanne is interesting because she actually does something other than whine about teen-angst, which the mostly late-20s characters should have outgrown. Lillian is a small part, but she's interesting because the misogynist chorus seems to have a special dislike for her, which could be an interesting story.One good point in the script is that there are a few scattered scenes that are funny – not great comedy work, but at least it was a break from the tedium. Overall, I rate the story lackluster (4).The acting is all solid, most notably that of Viktoria Winge. But the good acting goes to waste on a script that is dull, and directing that obscures the performances.One good point of the film was interesting music, featuring Norwegian bands and various punk rock.On the basis of the lackluster story, and other elements that don't do much to elevate the film, I rate it lackluster (4) overall.My wife and I saw this at the 2007 Seattle International Film Festival. It was even worse for my wife than for me. She had seen it in Norway, sucked in by favorable reviews. She didn't like it. Then she ended up seeing again, because of an unannounced festival schedule change. I suggested she slip out and shop, or otherwise have some fun, but I figured I'd sit through it to see if it just didn't work for her. But she decided to give it a second try, thinking maybe there was something admirable about it that she missed the first time. No such luck; it was just as boring the second time.

seamallowance Avoid this movie! I saw this film as part of a press screening in San Francisco. At the time of this writing, it had not been released yet in the theaters here. This film will be appreciated by unsophisticated, young, art students with angst and a pack of Gauloise non-filter cigarettes, but not by anyone else, unless they're Norwegian. (Norwegians are so happy to see a film in that language that they temporarily lose their common sense) Beautifully shot and very well acted, this film makes for a frustrating evening spent. The entire audience was muttering as they left the screening. Some were visibly angry for having been suckered into the screening. As it appears to have absolutely flawless accolades everywhere *before release*, it appears that their publicity machine has been working overtime to pump up what is essentially 103 minutes of wasted time. (That actress is quite pretty, by the way. Let's hope that she gets a better script next time)

augneblinken This is the first time since "Flåklypa Grand Prix," that I reckon a Norwegian film worthy a 10. Being a Norwegian this film is kind of a relive, because it finally shows that we are able to produce a film that has got good actors with believable lines. It's also a piece that is filmed well, and based upon a script that young and ambitious Norwegians can relate to. All that said, I'm not sure that foreigners would interpret this the same way as Norwegians do. It might be that one of the reasons that this film has got many fans in Norway is that we can relate to the things that happens: The type of friendship between the main characters, Oslo, the "never grow up" life that an affluent society have brought us to, etcetera. Still, if someone would like to know more about being young in a country that is far from the centre of attention, but were things are possible due to an excess of resources, this is the film. The film has got typical Norwegian humour (which I actually reckon at a really high level in general), it's documenting the interrelations between the characters in a great manner, and the music is also used very well. The soundtrack for this movie is worth checking out.