Watch Oslo, August 31st For Free

That was an excellent one.

Simple and well acted, it has tension enough to knot the stomach.

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Oslo, October 31st (2011)A highly realistic, intimate view of a young man who has completed a drug abuse program and is trying to rejoin his life. It's a rough ride, sometimes boring, sometimes raw, but it's the real thing, and if you have an interest in this kind of common problem without watching a documentary, this is the movie.Though set in Oslo, there is a universal quality to all of this. Yes, the leading man, Anders, has the usual problem getting jobs. But that's just the beginning. It's about friends who want to help and friends who expect him to help them be wild. It's about old girlfriends, new girlfriends, parties where you can't drink, family that wasn't adequate, and on and on.And the temptation of real drugs, beyond drink.It's odd to realize, but I think the bottom line is that most young people live in a culture that's on the edge, on purpose and for good reason. And there is a percentage of people who can't handle that, who need to go over the edge, and will always go over the edge. Some of those people understand it early and save themselves, others never can. And life is a series of crises.This isn't a feel good movie about a man who succeeds (I'm not saying here if he succeeds or not—just that it's not some sunny happiness after a round with the devil). This is about what it might be like to be in the shoes of Anders, or anyone like him, and how almost impossible it is to rise up. And his friends and family are partly to blame, sad to admit.The final few minutes of the film are poetic—elegiac might be a better word—and the opening to the film is similarly daring and edgy. It's odd and perhaps too bad the the middle—the bulk of it—is more prosaic. It's good, it's really good, but without the poetry we are sure to sink into empathy and sadness, watching what is surely so believable it is, somewhere, all too real.

Not sure why there is so much praise for the film. It's an interesting insightful look at the social aspects of addition. However, it lacks the drama or heart of 'Requiem for a Dream'.The protagonist is a weak young man. Makes a pathetic attempt at suicide the day before his job interview. On his day of freedom, he drops in on old friends and is met by hostility and suspicion. Not surprisingly, he messes up his job interview.He wanders around the city alone. Eavesdropping on other people talking about their lives. He befriends a girl and leaves her. The film ends predictably.IMO, the film does hit a bulls eye by focusing on the social nature of addiction. That lonely lost people are vulnerable. On the road back, loneliness is once again a major issue.

I watched this because I read a rave review.Maybe it is realistic. In the sense that reality can be extremely dull.I found it tiresome and completely uninvolving. If you end up caring about any of the characters, you're a better man than I.In presenting someone who's suicidal, it certainly left me wanting to slit my own wrists.Basically, it's a day in the life of a spoilt, self-pitying, self-absorbed twit.I only wish he'd killed himself at the start of the film rather than the end as it would have saved me the tedious torture of watching it.I hope this review saves someone else from wasting time that could be much better spent.

(Spoilers!) The story tracks one day in the life 34-year-old Anders (Anders Danielsen Lie), ending on the date mentioned in the title. Anders is nearing the end of a drug detox program where he has been in attendance for several months. He has been given an evening leave to go for a job interview.We come to know a lot about Anders and his decision to end it all. On his evening leave, and before his job interview, he goes to see his old friend Thomas who is married with a child and is a professor of literature. The two sit on a park bench and have an intense conversation. It is from this scene that we see how depressed Anders is and realize that, even though Thomas clearly cares for him, there is no future for their returning to their old relationship. If an early scene of an attempted suicide does not warn us of what is on his mind, then Anders citing the quote, "If someone wants to destroy himself, society should allow him to do so," makes it pretty clear. In this conversation Anders wants Thomas to know that if he does commit suicide, then it will have been a willful decision and not simply a mistaken OD.Anders is fully committed to his depression, making statements like, "I am nothing." In his job interview for editorial assistant to a literary magazine, after holding his own intellectually he preempts the meeting before it is clear that a negative decision is forthcoming. It's almost like he is afraid that he might get the job. Ander's depression is so painfully real that I was left wondering if his depression caused his drug problem or if his drug problem caused his depression--probably a combination.In one scene Anders walks the streets of Oslo remembering, in a voice-over, his family life from the time he was growing up. This scene is particularly poignant, since we see that Anders came from a good family and was afforded financial and emotional support as a young person. There seems to be some truth in his remarking, "I'm a spoiled brat who f***** up. Nobody needs me."It's natural to root for Anders to turn the corner, but he thwarts hope at every turn. The woman he loved has moved to New York and, after several calls to her getting her answering machine and no callbacks, that hope is closed off. In a park Anders looks up at the sun coming through a tree, smiles and we think maybe an appreciation of nature will help, but I think Ander's apparent appreciation comes from his knowing that this is the last time he will have this bond with the natural world. His sister avoids an arranged meeting; his parents have had to sell their house in order to support him. So, family support has eroded. Near the end Anders sits down at the piano and plays some bars from a piano sonata. It's impressive to see that Anders Lie can actually play. He is good enough to fake being rusty. After giving a remote hope that maybe music can same him, when he encounters a difficult passage that frustrates him he abandons the piano.The film is tightly edited--there are no superfluous scenes; the story unfolds in a fluid way as we come to know and understand Anders. The beauty of the movie makes you come to see how Anders sees the world, and why he feels at a deep level that he can't go back, and nor can he go forward. After a suicide the first question anyone asks is why and usually there are no satisfactory answers, but, to its credit, this movie provides some answers in this particular case.