Perhaps most of the humor just doesn’t translate (the film was a smash hit in Sweden). Whatever the case, the script needed to mine more comedy from the characters, not the clownish plot machinations.
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What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
Los Angeles Times by Betsy Sharkey
There is a great deal of silliness about Allan's journey from start to finish and no real message other than to never stop taking life as it comes. But there is also a great deal of fun in watching a 100-year-old man climb out a window and disappear.
The Dissolve by Charles Bramesco
100-Year-Old sometimes feels like a rote biopic of a famous figure who never was, congratulating viewers on whatever recognition has rolled over from grade-school history class, then moving on to what comes next.
This movie, as it happens, is a comedy, but it’s a frequently grisly one, and one that makes rollicking fun of a lot of dark Swedish preoccupations.
Wall Street Journal by John Anderson
Consistently daffy, consistently amusing.
Village Voice by Michael Nordine
The 100-Year-Old Man's equal-opportunity irreverence doesn't often translate to cleverness.
The A.V. Club by Mike D'Angelo
The 100-Year-Old Man surely won’t conquer the U.S. box office, but it’s a nice change of pace to see a foreign film that isn’t deadly serious. We could use more subtitled belly laughs.
The New York Times by Neil Genzlinger
The film genre that might be called Old People Behaving Hilariously gets an appealing new entry with The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared, a sometimes daffy, often droll Swedish movie.
The script never quite succeeds in making us care about Allan as a character (despite dubbing its quavering narration into English for the ease of American auds), but it finds an interesting balance for a personality who leaves a trail of disaster in his wake.