Rent Oslo, August 31st (2011)

Some powerful individual moments add meaning to what is a very meandering & laboured story - Oslo, August 31st review by Timmy B

Last year, I watched The Worst Person in the World, a beautiful musing on a young vivacious woman deciding to change her life and following the different relationships that she pursued. I really enjoyed the film and when I saw it was part of Joachim Trier's Oslo trilogy, I was curious to look at the other parts of it. However, whilst there was some naval gazing in Worst Person, in Oslo, August 31st, the vast sections of awkward dialogue & boring silences many times completely suffocate the film's pace/structure.

Anders (Danielson Lie,) is a thirty something man who we first meet awakening from a one night stand with an old girlfriend. After a failed suicide attempt, we then learn he is in rehab for various addictions. On August 30th, he is given a day's release to go into Oslo for a job interview. We follow him as he meets with old friends, attends the interview and tries to make peace with many of the people whom he hurt.

One of the most frustrating things about Oslo, August 31st is that it has moments of genuine, deeply moving emotion & acting. Early on, Anders goes to meet Thomas, an old friend with whom massive quantities of narcotics and alcohol were consumed many years ago. And their conversations about the good times before everything went wrong, through to the difficulties that they deal with today (Anders with his addictions/recovery; Thomas the realisation that his life is now relatively empty & dull now that he has family commitments and a loveless marriage,) are powerful and saddening. The old adage "You don't care about time, but then you realise time doesn't care about you..." repeatedly crossed my mind, watching these two estranged friends who are both young and old simultaneously.

There is also an extremely moving scene where Anders goes for a job interview, which is a requirement of his recovery. And it is clear he has journalistic talent as the manager looks through his portfolio. But the feelings of not only worthlessness but also imposter syndrome are so great, they tear Anders apart. The emotions that Lie shows here are superb & heartbreaking.

But the narrative too often gets bogged down with not only naval-gazing but also random montages. And as much as there are moving scenes with Anders fighting with the poison of dependency, there are many other scenes of him being either petulant or straight-up narcissistic. A scene where he is informed that his parents are selling their house in order to fund the eye-wateringly high cost of his rehab is met with pouty surliness, followed by childlike complaining about how his sister got more than he did when they were younger.

As much as this may be seen as an unflinching look at how addiction destroys so much in the sufferer's life, there does have to be a likeable element to them for us to care. And after the early promise, I simply started to dislike everything about Anders: the petulance, the narcissism, the thieving, everything. And the pace of the film doesn't help matters either. Although it has a 90 minute runtime, it felt twice as long. After a while, I simply lost interest in Anders's plight.

And although I won't spoil the ending, it left me with a genuinely foul taste in my mouth: the ultimate act of selfishness & cruelty in the impact it would have to other characters.

For many reviewers, it was a powerful musing of emotion, struggle and the inability to conquer the demons which haunted Anders. But I just found myself not caring and looking at the Blu-Ray player display waiting for it to be over. Yes, the powerful moments stayed with me, but they were few and far between.