Cinequest – King Curling: surprising hilarity from the Norse ice

This Norwegian comedy, set in a sport that even the Norwegians find to be odd and boring, is HILARIOUS.  The star of a curling team suffers a psychotic breakdown and, after years of treatment, is released from an asylum heavily medicated.  To win money for a friend’s lifesaving operation, the curling team must win a tournament and the star needs to go off his meds to regain his game skills.

It’s a broad comedy, but the key is that the actors aren’t trying to be funny, a la Jack Black or Will Ferrell.  Instead, they play it absolutely straight, relying on the characters, situations and dialogue to generate the laughs.  And laughs, they are aplenty.

The curling star tries to maintain despite his recurring hallucinations of floating pink lint.  One of the Norwegian curlers, a womanizer with unusually low standards,  keeps lapsing into American gangsta street talk.  Another has a long-lost father who turns up as, of course, a Rod Stewart impersonator who doesn’t sound remotely like Rod Stewart.  And then there’s the kissing dog.  You gotta see this movie – it’s a top drawer broad comedy.

It’s playing again at Cinequest tonight (March 2) and tomorrow (March 3).