All I knew about this movie in advance that it is a from Iceland and has Julia Stiles and Forest Whitaker in it. These were three good enough reasons to watch it. Not that I know much of Icelandic cinema, but I am always interested in “different” (defined by me as non-Hollywood mainstream) and I was hoping that this film would prove to be such. It was, although the Icelandic nature of the movie was confusing. Based on the weather patterns displayed in the movie I couldn’t decide where it was supposed to be set in. It was switching back and forth between raining and snowing. But from some minor verbal and visual hints I concluded we should be in Missouri. The actors I recognized were certainly American. It all became clear at the end, when I read the credits. It was indeed shot in Iceland and created (i.e. written, directed, produced and manned/personned?) by an Icelandic crew.
The movie itself was hard drama. An insurance investigator, whose job is find and create reasons for his company not to pay up, attempts to uncover the circumstances of a car accident, where the beneficiary is supposed to get a million dollars. (Spoiler alert) In the process he becomes involved with the family and his better self awakens. It has a surprise ending, which is both happy and unhappy at the same time.
But I got the feeling that the plot is there mostly to provide a frame for the haunting images the director paints for us. We see night rain as if it would never stop, a mysterious and tempting tunnel, a bleak motel room inviting abuse to happen in, a snowman with twigs as his hair, and in general such rural poverty that is rarely shown nowadays. I wonder whether the author/director was drawing upon autobiographical experiences. Either way it showed me a world I knew existed, but it became much more tangible. For that and for the way Whitaker used his Midwestern accent to say “Yah” I thank this movie.