Reprise
Director: Joachim Trier
Year Released: 2006
Rating: 1.5
Two budding novelists from Norway - who apparently haven't heard the word that the novel is dead - engage in some friendly competition with each other to see who can become successful at it. The plot is intentionally muddled in the beginning with various flashbacks and time-shifting tricks before (more or less) settling down for the remainder of the picture, a move that only reveals how ultimately mundane and poorly developed these characters are. What triggers the one character's breakdown is never made clear, nor is the subject matter of their novels - Joachim Trier needs a few more lessons from Cousin Lars von T. on fleshing out his stories. Lil' Trier is correct about one thing, however: that long-term girlfriends and their need for domestication can potentially interfere with the artistic drive (although going through a long series of girlfriends and wives never stopped old Hemingway or Picasso did it?).
