Movie review: Noi

As my partner is at a conference this weekend, I availed myself of the DVD selection at my local library to pick up a couple of movies. When I am out of town Jason rents movies that I am unwilling to watch. Generally these movies are complete crap and, thus, not a part of the library collection. Some recent examples include that movie about the 30- and 40-something men who went back to college to join a fraternity, maybe it was called "Old School," and the one about spring break or something in Europe ("Eurotrip," perhaps?). When Jason is out of town I watch foreign films. He is rarely willing to rent them, not because they're awful like the movies he wants to watch, but because he finds it too much work to read the subtitles.

Last night I watched, Noi, an Icelandic movie about some brainiac kid living in a tiny village out on the tundra. Although it received many awards, I didn't find the movie very compelling so it is a good thing that Jason wasn't home to complain about how I made him watch it. Noi, the hero, wasn't a very sympathetic character. The plot started out well but it ended up having one of those story lines which concludes with people being killed off in order for it to all work out. I have absolutely no patience for writers who can't come up with a more interesting way to conclude their tales than a plane crash, fire, cancer, or, in this case, avalanche, that eliminates the antagonists and gives the hero the push he needs to pull himself together.

I don't recommend Noi, unless you're feeling particularly trapped and isolated and you'd like to feel better about your miserable life by making a favorable comparison.