101
Reykjavík, directed by Baltasar Kormákur,
is a film about angst among Icelanders in their twenties,
based on a novel of the same title by Hallgrimu Helgason.
What used to be called the "Danish solution" is
very much present in Iceland: a fatherless child grows with
up a mother, who gets state support; after completing school,
the young adult can get state support to survive while pretending
to look for employment; and presumably a retirement pension
is available down the road. So what’s the incentive to
work? During the day, young adults are bored, either at work
or at home; during the night, young adults can go to a pickup
bar and sleep with anyone and eventually everyone. One such
young adult is Hlymur (played by Hilmir Snaer Gudnason), who
is nearly thirty. His alcoholic father walked out of the family
some years ago. Hlymur has no job and no ambition for a career.
Although Hofi (played by Thrúdur Vilhjálmsdóttir),
with whom he has had sex and carries his child, wants to marry
him; to her chagrin, he is not interested. His fortysomething
mother Berglind (played by Hanna María Karlsdóttir)
is employed, but she shares hashish with her son. One day,
she decides to take a course in Spanish dancing to relieve
her boredom. Eventually, she falls in love with her dance
instructor, Lola (played by Victoria Abril), but does not
tell Hlymur of her affair. She then plots, parking Lola at
her home while she goes to her relatives out of town to celebrate
the New Year, leaving Hlymur at home with energetic Lola,
who in turn needles him about his lassitude. Predictably,
the two have sex. When Hlymur’s mother returns after
the holiday, she announces that she loves Lola, and she is
pleased when Hlymur accepts her lesbianism. Meanwhile, Lola
discloses that she is pregnant and wants Hlymur’s child,
but she later has an abortion. The unexpected but tidy happy
ending, which clearly comes because Lola has transformed a
previously lethargic mother and son, appears with Hlymur pictured
as a parking meter attendant, presumably married to Hofi after
all. The film appears to have a conservative message amid
all the sexuality -- that the state exercises so much care
of its citizens that young people have no need to accept responsibility,
leaving them to adopt narcissistic and unproductive personalities.
MH
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