After a brief flirtation with American independent cinema a few years ago with Factotum, Bent Hamer returns to his roots with his first Norwegian film since 2003's Kitchen Stories. Like that film, O'Horten was submitted by Norway to be its submission in the foreign language category at the oscars, and like that film it was unable to garner a nomination.
We follow train "engineer" (i.e. driver) Odd Horten who is on the verge of retirement. He lives alone, has a mother in a nursing home and doesn't appear to have many friends. The film is a gentle exploration of this reserved character and the situations he finds himself in immediately prior to and after his retirement. The problem with all of this is that the narrative is extremely spotty. It's very much little moments and escapades but they could almost be put in any order and don't flow or gel together to create any kind of crescendo or to augment the characterisation shown.
It's billed as a comedy, but it's more mildly amusing in occasional places rather than consistently laugh-out-loud funny (and not overtly comedic and silly in tone the way Kitchen Stories was). The acting's fine, they utterly waste Henny Moan in a glorified cameo, but it's all about Bård Owe and he gives a very solid, watchable performance. Sadly the film is all about the character of Horten who Owe is playing and on top of the narrative not helping issues, his character is barely explored. This results in having an underdrawn, passive character being put in situations which don't reflect back on him or bring out his own character (the way say Norah Jones' Elizabeth has everyone and everything do in My Blueberry Nights) so it makes it extremely difficult to find any emotional or intellectual attachment.
This all proves a bit too much for the film as while it seems harmless enough and boasts some decent performances from the cast, it's just too lightweight, aimless and wandering to successfully hit on any level (comedic or dramatic) and as a result drags terribly and becomes increasingly tedious despite the all too intermittent chuckles. Couldn't recommend checking it out.