So, what if the Swedes made a version of "Napoleon Dynamite" only as a drama? Chubby kid Rille (Jerry Johansson) is in charge of the ping pong table for 4th graders at a community center. He lives with his hard-working, long suffering mother, and out-going and popular brother. Throughout the movie, you're waiting
for him to snap, and although he sort of does, it perhaps says more about the nordic temperament that he doesn't (if this were a U.S. film, he'd probably blow up the school or something). He doesn't seem to fit in anywhere, not with kids his own age, not with girls, not even with his own family (his brother and rugged, scuba-diving father seem almost identical while he feels he's the odd man out). His mother brings home the town's laughingstock, a man nicknamed "Road Gunnar" (nicknamed thus because of a failed road construction he was planning- it's failure leading to his nervous breakdown), who, when Rille overhears a conversation between he and his mother, begins to suspect that Gunnar is his father. Meanwhile, the quiet, studious girl Rille has a crush on draws pictures with an innate focus on the male form, and his estranged father turns out to be more than a rogue, he seems to be a drunk as well. While there's alot crammed into this movie, it seems to move at a glacial-like pace, and it's tough to generate much excitement over what does happen when it happens. However, there does seem to be genuine emotion at stake, and the characters are portrayed in a realistic fashion. The King of Ping Pong is a mild enjoyment, nothing ground-breaking, but I don't think it's trying to be.
May 23, 2010
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