Norwegian film by the Danish-born newcomer, Joaquim Trier, traces the diverging literary careers of a pair of pissy-and-vinegary young friends in Oslo. One of them (the sallow Anders Danielsen Lie, with an institutional shaved head) has an earlier success, a mental meltdown, and a prominent girlfriend, while the other (the blond and robust Espen Klouman-Hoiner) comes on later but stronger, and would hardly be caught dead in the company of his girlfriend. Trier lays out these paths in an exuberantly youthy style — scrambled timeline, biographical digressions, hypothetical alternatives, know-it-all narrator — such that you might think to look around to see whether there’s not a swelling Norwegian New Wave. (Lifted snippets of Georges Delerue’s music for Godard’s Contempt — the same snippets lifted by Scorsese in Casino — call to mind another New Wave.) Much of the exuberance settles down as the film rolls along, and the people come to seem, despite the all-over pasty color, quite flesh-and-blood, quite real. Which is not to say interesting or compelling, other than to themselves. (2007) — Duncan Shepherd
This movie is not currently in theaters.