Starring: Robert Gustaffson, Iwar Wiklander, David Wiburg
Allan Karlsson (Gustaffson) has lived an extraordinary life. Obsessed with explosions, which took him into mental healthcare and fighting in wars, Allan has met many historical figures and travelled the world. On the day of his hundredth birthday however, Allan makes a break from his retirement home and with a suitcase of 50 million Krona belonging to a gang of criminals, Allan goes on an adventure.
After becoming a hugely popular bestselling book throughout Scandinavia and later picking up popularity around the world, the inevitable has now happened and Jonas Jonasson's The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out The Window And Disappeared has gotten the movie treatment. The resulting adaptation is both a triumph and a failure depending on what aspect you want to focus on.
For all of its high-concept ideas, for most audiences there will be a distinct echo of Forrest Gump (1994) about this. Both are literary adaptations about the lives of fictional protagonists who may not seem very special at first, have a had a front-row seat to the events of history. In Forrest Gump you get the sense that Forrest is America's self-effacing anthropomorphism of itself and stereotypes of its people. Forrest is not the sharpest tool in the shed, but he's sweet, good-natured and possesses a subtle but simple brand of wisdom and determination. Allan Carlsson, the protagonist for this film, perhaps reflects Sweden's view of itself. Stoic, fond of the occasional drink, understated but always present and again slightly simple (though smarter than Forrest) at times and highly intelligent at other times. Iwar Wiklander gives perhaps the strongest performance as the owner of a abandoned train station and a friend Allan picks up along the way, projecting good-naturedness as he goes.
The role of Allan is played Robert Gustaffson, a big name comic in Sweden. He certainly has presence and can often be very amusing but he is more interesting playing the younger adult version of himself than the make-up applied senior. Cosmetically, the makeup effects in the film are not the highest that the field of movie makeup has achieved. The historical figures that are involved are a mixed bag. Most of them pass by with little real screen time or impact. It keeps the story on the straight-and-narrow (one of the film's biggest strengths) but characterisation suffers even if the best of these characters (Harry Truman and the physically identical but mentally inferior brother of Albert Einstein) do manage to overcome it slightly.
The film manages a mixture of gentle and dark comedy that's quite unusual. The plot deals with gang violence and the language is often coarse meaning that this perhaps isn't sweet and slightly twee family film it may present itself to be at times (although the twee aspect does occasionally crop up) but it's when the film goes for the softer and less edgy jokes that it shines best in terms of comedy. All in all, I get the feeling that The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out The Window And Disappeared will not endure as a film, even if the book might but there are worse ways to waste a couple of hours than this little piece of Euro-Gump.
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