The Bothersome Man.

"Based on a Norwegian radio play by Per Schreiner (who also wrote the screenplay) and directed by Jens Lien, The Bothersome Man is either a creepy comment on Scandinavian depression or a sour glimpse of the afterlife as yuppie fantasy," writes Jeannette Catsoulis. "Quiet desperation has never looked so gorgeous."

At the AV Club, Noel Murray finds it to be "a fairly well-worn pastiche of several 'individual vs utopia' stories with some deadpan Northern European comedy of the Aki Kaurismäki/Roy Andersson variety, all topped with a pinch of Groundhog Day."

"The Bothersome Man is intriguingly bizarre, but only in the most superficial, what-the-hell's-going-on-here? sort of way," writes Mike D'Angelo at Nerve. "Half-baked and coyly vague, the movie itself, while often very funny, can be as impassively irritating as its title character."

Earlier: Ed Gonzalez at Slant.

Posted by dwhudson at August 25, 2007 7:23 AM