This movie is dismal and cold as an Icelandic winter and overloaded with just about as many 'topical' social ills as could be formatted into a movie. We are treated to yet another convoluted style (now trendy) of telling a simple story - this time about a bunch of disenfranchised social misfits with whom we are expected to sympathize. One of these is a very young unmarried mother (shockingly abused by her grandfather) who now supports herself and her young child by working at a day care centre. She then prostitutes herself by night to an assortment of grotesque clientele - these tend to be made up of macho sportsmen who have sex with blow-up dolls, married so-called 'family' men, or older misfits (a somewhat odd lifestyle choice for one wanting to escape an abused past). Next is a writer, who through the tragedy of a bad marriage has become a cheap drunk who roams the streets getting brutally beat up and robbed by local criminal types.
Then there's a group of young hotshot bankers bent on making it to the top (by any means) who do big time 'party' drugs and cheat on their devoted, 'dearly loved' wives. If you can't wait to follow the exploits of this bunch you may be right for this never ending slog - it clocks in at nearly 2.1/2 debilitating hrs. The images are often as murky as the midnight sun and are presented in the lower cost medium of hand-held cameras.
Having been entered in festivals as a contender for best Icelandic film - it suggests there may not have been much else around that year. Not a particularly desirable look for Icelandic Films. Might have been much more interesting if story elements weren't so unrelentingly downbeat and sordid.
While overall performances are quite convincing, the story generally fits with what you might expect to find on the trash-fest World Movies channel.
