This week’s DVD pick, the dark Norwegian comedy thriller Headhunters, has some big laughs. But it’s just one of some very funny Norwegian comedies this year. I also liked the teen sex comedy Turn Me On, Dammit!. Who knew that the Norwegians could be so damn funny?
My favorite comedy this year is King Curling, 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 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 composure 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. It’s a top drawer broad comedy. Here’s the trailer for King Curling.