90
Los Angeles Times by Kenneth Turan
There's nothing casual about the way this film has been put together, yet that painstaking care leads to laughter that is completely unrestrained.
Kitchen Stories (Salmer fra kjøkkenet)
Critic Rating
(read reviews)User Rating
- Norway,
- Sweden
- 2003
- · 95m
Director
Bent Hamer
Cast
Joachim Calmeyer,
Tomas Norström,
Bjørn Floberg,
Reine Brynolfsson,
Sverre Anker Ousdal,
Jan Gunnar Røise
Genre
Drama,
Comedy
Scandinavian researcher's observe the emergence of the modern housewife in the 1950s and plan to revolutionize the home kitchen. For the project, a Swedish scientist observes a Norwegian man's kitchen habits, but worries he may be shedding his objectivity as a kinship between the two men develops.
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What are critics saying?
88
The Globe and Mail (Toronto) by Liam Lacey
Serves to champion human irrepressibility and unpredictability. It's the flip side to the defeatism of "Distant," but with parallels, both in the very deliberate pacing and moments of visual wit.
88
Premiere by Peter Debruge
In the end, it's not the answer to the kitchen mystery that matters but the revelation that there's ultimately no difference between this bachelor scientist and his bachelor subject.
88
New York Daily News by Jami Bernard
Features an absurdist sensibility that ultimately melts your heart. It's certainly one of the stranger movies you'll see.
83
Portland Oregonian by Shawn Levy
It's a film that triumphs in small ways and satisfyingly demonstrates how our human nature is based on both the eccentricity of our hearts and the quirky workings of our heads.
80
L.A. Weekly by Scott Foundas
In the landscape of contemporary movie comedies, Kitchen Stories is like a rejuvenating blast of crisp Nordic air.
80
Newsweek by David Ansen
Hamer, a meticulous observer himself, is a minimalist with heart.
80
New York Magazine (Vulture) by Peter Rainer
The film is saying that, left to their own devices, all men would devolve into a morass of monastic grouches. Kitchen Stories is a prime piece of comic anthropology.
80
The Hollywood Reporter by Michael Rechtshaffen
In the wonderfully droll Kitchen Stories, Norwegian filmmaker Bent Hamer takes an already inspired premise and weaves it into a spry absurdist comedy that also manages to find some considerable warmth.
80
Film Threat
Like all good films, it raises these types of questions, answering some, and leaving some for you to answer yourself.
80
Film Threat by D. W. Smith
Like all good films, it raises these types of questions, answering some, and leaving some for you to answer yourself.
70
The A.V. Club by Noel Murray
Seems too subtle at times and too obvious at others, but Hamer strings together pieces of conversation and layers of voyeurism (everybody in the movie is watching somebody) into a moving study of the perils of presumption.
70
Variety by David Rooney
The film appears consistently poised to go deeper but instead hangs back, making it less substantial than it might have been. Yet the sweet-natured story's gentle humor and poignancy should draw appreciative audiences.
70
Time by Richard Schickel
What a pleasure it is not to be hectored by a director as we laugh our own little laughs, watching a profound story unfold.
67
Entertainment Weekly by Owen Gleiberman
The icy whimsy of Kitchen Stories is certainly well sustained, but you don't laugh at the movie so much as wait for the joke to thaw.
60
Village Voice by J. Hoberman
Slight but sardonic, Norwegian director Bent Hamer's deadpan Kitchen Stories makes a taciturn comedy of nothingness out of color-coordinated '50s coziness and Scandinavian social planning.
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