A septuagenarian taking his penultimate voyage from Oslo to Bergen begins to mentally prepare for his final trip, but finds that sometimes things don't turn out as expected when he misses the last departure for the first time in 40 years. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
It's a film whose pleasures come slowly, as we, like the title character, discover the joys he's missed. Best of all, we, like Odd the Norwegian bachelor, figure out it is never too late to start living.
Hamer creates a quirky, beguiling, and very funny mood piece that reflects on age, adventure, uncertainty, and humanity. Owe gives the character of Horten an off-center dignity that will suggest comparisons to Jacques Tati and Buster Keaton
Pointedly strange and whimsical, O'Horten mixes the surreal with the mundane in its depiction of the retirement and eventual rebirth of a train engineer.
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.
If you can settle into [Baard Owe's] playful deadpan rhythms, a bittersweetly funny, existential mystery -- or call it a modest adventure, if that's not too oxymoronic -- awaits.
O'Horten won't be for everyone, but if you enjoy character-driven films that also treat the landscape as a character, this one has a certain charm and appeal.
...a fable that relies less on fantastical transport than the defrosting of cool faculties; less on the titillation of the senses than the thawing of frozen hearts.
The decidedly Nordic -- though not at all glacial -- O'Horten is a mixture of sweetness and deadpan that proves the Kaurismäki/Andersson school of filmmaking still has new delights in store.
As an old man, Horten is a rare movie hero, but the director reminds us that other things are more ancient; in one scene, Horten hefts a meteorite that predates the sun, and in another scene, Strindberg is quoted: 'In due time, even the stars must fall.'
I thought it would be a funny little story about a guy having a hard time settling in to retirement. But not so much. It wasn't funny, aside from one scene with an adorable little boy and for the most part it was boring. It had the potential, it just let me down in a really slow, painful way.
Typically melancholic meditation on retirement encased in a meandering plot where the lead bumps into a host of eccentrics who aid his introspection. Slight but not without charm.
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