by Linda Kay
Directed by: Erik Skjoldbjærg
This review contains a slight Kitty Carnage Warning for scruffing!
Cat Out of the Bag Alert! This review contains some spoilers for this film!
Synopsis: Jonas Engström (Stellan Skarsgård) and his partner Erik Vik (Sverre Anker Ousdal) are Swedish police inspectors who fly to Norway to investigate the brutal murder of a teenaged girl. Things spiral out of control quickly, compounded by Engström’s inability to sleep in the land of the midnight sun.
Cat Burglars (Scene Stealers): Late in the film Engström returns to the hotel where he is staying and hears a strange crying sound coming from a room behind the reception desk. When he goes to investigate he finds Ane (Maria Bonnevie), the front desk clerk, kneeling near a boxful of calico kittens. She encourages him to come over.
Ane meets Engström in the middle of the room and hands him a grey and white kitten with his eyes having just opened. Engström is clearly uncomfortable as Ane comments, “He can barely see you.” “No, I suppose that’s just as well,” Engström sighs. Ane interprets him to mean the kitten has something to look forward to but Engström corrects her, saying he thinks the kittens are disgusting before handing the tiny creature back to Ane.
Ane lifts the kitten by the scruff and turns to replace him in the box with his siblings. “They’re just a bit helpless,” she explains, then adds their mother is dead. This dialogue, loaded with subtext, leads to a kiss, but Engström gets too enthusiastic and Ane has to push him away, running from the room and yelling, “I just wanted to show you the kittens!”
Final Mewsings: Never trust a man who thinks kittens are disgusting.
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