Critic Reviews

Kittelsen is a funny, expansive actress, and director Anne Sewitsky manages the sad-comic tonal shifts with emotional accuracy.

The ensuing drama is typically Scandinavian in the best way possible – the setting's beautiful, the tensions slow-burning. Meanwhile, musical interludes courtesy of a barbershop quartet lend a playful undertone.

The characters remain governed by what they've been told about themselves for years - that they're ugly, devious, mean, low-class, or silly - until a fresh set of eyes changes what they see in the mirror. Knowing this mutual moment of stark self-awareness is coming doesn't make its arrival any less powerful.

Winner of Sundance's grand jury prize for world cinema, Happy, Happy is a very strange film. Yet I was happy to be watching. It is short and intense enough that it always seems on track, even if the train goes nowhere.

The curdled Norwegian comedy-drama Happy, Happy, which dissects a pair of poisoned marriages, is sometimes heavy-handed (like its title) but has much to recommend it.

If it weren't so good-natured overall, Anne Sewitsky's feature debut Happy, Happy might seem entirely implausible, even for a comedy.

Picture ultimately pulls off a fairly ambitious narrative agenda with a wrap both credible and crowdpleasing.

The questionable black-historical shorthand detracts from what is otherwise a well-performed and fitfully amusing film.

At times, Happy, Happy is cutting comedy at its brutal best; at times, it slips on the black ice. Still, the love of life is exuberant, the pain exquisite.

Happy, Happy has the makings of a Norwegian "Ice Storm," but it goes out with a whimper.