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Happy, Happy(Sykt lykkelig)

✭ ✭ ✭   Read critic reviews

Norway · 2010
Rated R · 1h 25m
Director Anne Sewitsky
Starring Agnes Kittelsen, Maibritt Saerens, Henrik Rafaelsen, Joachim Rafaelsen
Genre Comedy, Drama, Romance

Family is everything to Kaja, but she and her husband Eirik have a loveless marriage. When the “perfect” couple moves in next door, Kaja is jealous of their strong bond. However, she soon finds out their marriage is not as sound as it appears and begins a wild affair with the husband.

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What are critics saying?

70

Village Voice by

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

70

Los Angeles Times by Betsy Sharkey

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.

40

Time Out by David Fear

Throw in some quirky interludes of a Norwegian quartet singing old American spirituals every so often, and you've got something that's truly messy, messy.

70

Variety by Dennis Harvey

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

50

Slant Magazine by Ed Gonzalez

The filmmaker looks to American modes of visual and aural expression to give Happy, Happy its soul, but all her fetish accomplishes is depersonalizing her story, making a sitcom of her character's lives.

60

Wall Street Journal by Joe Morgenstern

In her casually daring - and mostly endearing - debut feature, the Norwegian director Anne Sewitsky mixes and purposely mismatches light and dark moods to tell the story of a rural wife and mother looking for happiness in the wrong places, and finally in the right one.

75

The A.V. Club by Noel Murray

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.

50

The New York Times by Stephen Holden

Sets out to puncture the clichéd image of Scandinavians as rosy-cheeked choristers bonded in communal togetherness. But its subversive intentions are ultimately undercut by its lack of nerve, along with a lurking sentimentality.

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