It’s a good thing that “A Man Called Ove,” writer/director Hannes Holm’s Swedish import about an aging widower who finds new reasons to live, wasn’t made in America. Next to hookers with hearts of gold, grumpy senior citizens are Hollywood’s go-to cliché; no fewer than Shirley MacLaine, Christopher Plummer, and Jack Nicholson have been felled by such two-dimensional roles. But Ove is something different – something deeper and more complex. This is partly because, well, he’s Swedish – the Swedes do tortured and deep very well; hello, Ingmar Bergman! – and partly because this character already was so richly formed in the pages of Fredrik Backman’s eponymous international bestseller.
On the topic of what makes a good adaptation, Holm has said:
My task as a director is to, like a thief, steal the story out of the book and make a film of it. So when I began shooting, after I had read it one hundred more times than anyone will ever do, I set it aside to focus on the production.
Whatever he did, it worked. Continue Reading →
