Sadly Over-hyped

The first must-see film of the year.

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

Blistering performances.

Thrown out of the marital home when his wife catches him watching a sex tape featuring him with a woman who is not her, the foolishly-tatooed Atli (Steinþór Hróar Steinþórsson) slinks back to the home of his parents, Inga and Baldvin (Edda Björgvinsdóttir and Sigurður Sigurjónsson). But they are distracted not only with mourning for Atli's brother, who disappeared many years ago, but also by a feud with their next-door neighbours (one of whom, I was delighted to realise, is played by Selma Björnsdóttir, runner-up of the 1999 Eurovision Song Contest!) The feud concerns a tree in Inga and Baldvin's garden which casts a shadow over the neighbours' lawn. As Atli goes about trying to win access to his daughter, the neighbourly feud spirals out of control.It seems that most films from Iceland are given the 'black comedy' tag, but this one is darker, and has less comedy, than most: although the feud's ultimate resolution would be unlikely to happen in real life, it is all too easy to imagine real life getting at least close to the film. As for Atli's storyline, after the initial 'ho ho ho, his wife caught him looking at a sex tape' moment, there are no laughs there. In fact, Atli's storyline is one of the main flaws of the film: it is interesting in a soap opera sort of way, but it is not obvious why so much time is spent on it when the focus of the film is supposed to be, presumably, the feud over the tree. It is almost as if the writers, Huldar Breiðfjörð and Hafsteinn Gunnar Sigurðsson (the latter also directed) could not spin out the feud to fill the entire film so thought they would use Atli's situation as padding. Another flaw of the film is poor lighting: interior scenes, especially, often look bleak and washed-out. While that may be intended to set the tone of the film, the viewer can not help wondering why these people in their nice houses do not switch on a few lights...Acting honours go to Björgvinsdóttir, who does a very nice turn as a parent whose grief over her other son's disappearance finds relief only in her antipathy to her neighbours. Sigurjónsson's portrayal of her husband, unsure how to cope with her, is also good, although he loses his admirable subtleness in the final few minutes and descends into acting-by-numbers, which is a shame. Steinþórsson is competent in his soap opera role. As the neighbours, I particularly enjoyed Þorsteinn Bachmann and the afore-mentioned Björnsdóttir's realistic portrayal of joyful relief when their missing dog turns up on the doorstep - all the more poignant for the viewer, who knows the dog is not as healthy as he at first seems...

A dark comedy indeed, Under the Tree guarantees an interesting experience at the theatre. The film finds its tone from the jump, jet-black humor feeding off depressed circumstances, and remains pleasantly consistent throughout-though this stylistic choice will make or break the experience for you. While there's no shortage of wit amongst these characters, nearly all of the humor revolves around one person being particularly nasty to another. Even on a 90 minute run time, I found this harsh demeanor to be kind of a drag (maybe dark comedies aren't my thing, maybe I missed the point; take your pick). Following the dissolution of several marriages-one for newfound life, one fighting for custody, and one for a reprieve from grief-it's hard to believe Under the Tree wouldn't wrangle a genuine emotional reaction out most audience members by the time credits roll. Perhaps more valuable as a meditation on severe familial dysfunction than as a straight comedy, the film will likely scratch an itch for Icelandic brevity you didn't think you had.

The movie is really well shot which makes it particularly enjoyable to watch. The characters are interesting and the family drama is really well-built, especially the story around Askurs' brother disappearance, which gets revealed as the movie goes on. The ending is quite heavy but all-together the movie isn't so difficult to watch as it also has some lighter scenes and even some humor. I really enjoyed the whole experience of watching this movie, and it's not everyday you get to watch an Icelandic movie! I would definitely recommend it.

In the description of "Under the Tree" in the film festival guide, it was a bit difficult to see whether or not the movie was a comedy. And, in watching it, this difficulty was NOT alleviated. Some folks saw the film as an ultra-dark comedy (perhaps like "War of the Roses") others saw it as a drama or cautionary tale. As for me, I just felt it was too dark to be laughed at and overall I found that it was well made but miserable to watch.The film is about a husband-wife who split up as well as the parents of this husband and their arguments with their neighbors about unimportant things. In both cases, the people become so embroiled in winning that they lose sight of what is right and what is reasonable and it all occurs in stages.At times, the film just went too far with these arguments. For example, one neighbor couldn't find their cat so they assumed the neighbor killed it. So, they had the neighbor's dog euthanized, stuffed and left it on their doorstep. Some might laugh at this...I was just horrified. The acting was good and the film watchable but incredibly nasty and unpleasant.By the way, something extraordinary happened during this viewing at the Philadelphia Film Festival. One man in the audience was laughing uproariously throughout the film. His response was extreme and unusual to say the least. Well, it apparently really offended another guy in the theater and through the course of the film they began screaming at each other. At the finale, it got uglier and I rushed to get Film Society staff because it looked as if they'd come to blows!! So, obviously one guy thought this was a great dark comedy and one thought it was a drama and it was offensive for anyone to laugh at the hellish story. Amazing that neither apparently saw that they were acting out the picture!!