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Year One
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
O'Horten
EMAILPRINTSony Pictures Classics
Generally favorable reviews
Based on 18 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 8 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >
Movie Info
Genre(s): Comedy | Drama
Written by: Bent Hamer
Directed by: Bent Hamer
Release Date:
Theatrical: May 22, 2009
DVD: September 22, 2009
Running Time: 90 minutes, Color
Origin: Norway | Germany | France
Language(s): Norwegian
Summary
RATING: PG-13 for brief nudity
Starring Baard Owe, Espen Skjonberg, Ghita Norby, Henny Moan, Bjorn Floberg, Kai Remlow, Per Jansen, and Bjarte Hjelmeland
The moment the train leaves the station without engineer Odd Horten aboard, he realizes that the path ahead is a journey without printed timetables and well-known stations. Horten has been forced to retire after 40 years of traveling a very stable rail, and the platform does not feel like a safe place anymore. His orderly, solitary existence is about to give way to a future of unlikely adventures and puzzling dilemmas: will Horten ever travel by plane? Will he finally sell his prized boat? How does Horten end up in a pair of women's red high-heeled shoes? Will he survive a nighttime drive with a blindfolded man at the wheel? Proof positive that there is humor to be found in aging, and we don't have to be elderly Norwegians to identify, laugh and embrace life in all its idiosyncratic splendor. O’Horten is Bent Hamer's wonderfully skewed view of the human condition and gives us that somewhat absurdist vision with great warmth, a little melancholy and universal appeal. (Sony Pictures Classics)
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database Official Studio Site
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
The Hollywood Reporter Duane Byrge
Enlivened with droll wit and framed with robust sensitivity, O'Horten is an amusing and entrancing personal portrait. Succinct in its visualizations and crisp in its pacing, its deferential storytelling is in sync with its Odd subject.
Read Full Review >Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
Odd is played by Baard Owe, a trim, fit man with a neat mustache, who may cause you to think a little of James Stewart, Jacques Tati or Jean Rochefort.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Ty Burr
O'Horten is a precise, deadpan drama of slapstick existentialism - a Bent Hamer movie, in other words.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum
Jack Nicholson's dyspeptic retiree in "About Schmidt" would no doubt identify with O'Horten's entertaining pain.
Read Full Review >Portland Oregonian Marc Mohan
Director Bent Hamer ("Factotum") keeps things drily amusing throughout.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club) Nathan Rabin
O’Horten feels like a waking dream. It's a film of subtle, insinuating charm, a character study about an eminently sane, reasonable man unsteadily navigating an increasingly insane, unreasonable world.
Read Full Review >Village Voice Scott Foundas
The movie, on its own modest terms, satisfies greatly.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan
This is a gentle comedy, both funny and melancholy, about a timid soul who discovers the necessity of embracing life in all its absurdity and unlooked-for joy.
Read Full Review >Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern
In a literal sense this delightful film, in Norwegian with English subtitles, is about retirement and the prospect of loss. But Mr. Hamer, a poet of the droll and askew, sends the aptly named Odd--it's also a common Norwegian name--on a cockeyed journey from regret through comic confusion to a lovely eagerness for new adventures.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov
A spare and perfectly droll kinda-sorta comedy from Norwegian director Hamer.
Read Full Review >The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Stephen Cole
In a better entertainment world, Owe would have won a special Buster Keaton Great Stoneface award at last year's Academy Awards.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Chronicle Walter Addiego
The strangeness, humor and melancholy of aging are deftly explored in this film.
Read Full Review >The New York Times A.O. Scott
O'Horten is about frustration, patience, kindness and the wildness that lurks in even the calmest hearts. What's odd about that?
Read Full Review >Washington Post Dan Zak
Depending on your patience for oddball mood pieces, you will either sleep through O' Horten or be oddly captivated. Either way, it'll be like dreaming.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Joe Neumaier
A quiet, oddly serene movie with a curious soul.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 7.2 (out of 10) based on 8 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
slim gave it a10:
A touching movie. But not for people who have been ruined by Hollywood gloss, clearly.
Dave gave it a9:
Very entertaining film. Since I"ve seen Kitchen Stories, I knew what to expect and I was not disappointed. May be a bit slow paced for some, but I thought it was a very interesting character study.
Cat gave it a3:
Are these reviewers high? This movie was like watching ice melt. It tried to be quirky and offbeat and only succeeded in putting us to sleep. Every frame was dark, it was perpetual night even when it was day, (welcome to Norway) and the story never got underway. What were they piping into the screening the reviewers saw? Either they were stoned, part of a mass delusion, or money has changed hands.
