Aberdeen
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Movie Reviews of Aberdeen
Movie Review: Well Acted And Superior Character Development. A Must See.
Summary: 5 Stars
This is an exceptionally well acted movie. Lena Headey has a pure break out performance that shows she will have a long career in film, as breathtakingly beautiful as Headey is her acting takes center stage...Stellan Skarsgard brillance and his chemistry with Headey in the father/daughter relationship is worth the price of this film...(Charlotte Rampling has a minor yet important role, she is on screen for 10 minutes total) This film is about the journey Headey and Skarsgard must take...disguised as a roadtrip with a destination but truly is a journey to see themselves and each other...Quality filmaking, it will linger...Movie Review: Amazing Film
Summary: 5 Stars
I saw Aberdeen at a film festival last March. It is an all around wonderful film. I fell in love with the characters and their journey to Kaisa's mother. Also, the cinematography is brilliant. Such as the scene with Kaisa and Clive eating at the restaurant-wonderful shot! Everyone must find a way to see this film!Movie Review: Terrific Movie!
Summary: 5 Stars
What a great movie. Lena Headey does a marvelous job and really shows her fine acting skills. The story is compelling and gutsy in its raw, stirring, emotional journey. Great writing, great direction and great acting!Movie Review: Road Trip to an Unexpected Place
Summary: 4 Stars
The premise of "Aberdeen" is outrageously sentimental; however, Charlotte Rampling (The Night Porter (Criterion Collection Spine #59); Under the Sand), with her trademark dry delivery, has never uttered a sentimental word onscreen in her life. In this movie, as "Helen,"she's supposedly in an Aberdeen hospital, near death with cancer. She calls her daughter "Kaisa," a successful, feisty(as they so often say), London lawyer with sidelines in snorting coke and one-night stands with strangers, played by Lena Headey (Terminator - The Sarah Connor Chronicles - The Complete First Season; 300 [Blu-ray]). Helen asks Kaisa to go find Helen's husband (common-law or otherwise, we never know), and Kaisa's father, Tomas Heller, as played by Stellan Skarsgard(Breaking the Waves; Mamma Mia! The Movie - Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! DVD Gift Set Version). He's previously worked the North Sea oil rigs, but is now back in his Norwegian homeland.
Aberdeen, a town on Scotland's Northeast coast is, in its modern incarnation, pretty much a wild west rootin' tootin' oil boom town, where you might go quite a distance hearing only Texas accents and passing only Tex-Mex eateries. Ian Rankin's Inspector Rebus, in his series of mystery novels, calls Aberdeen natives "Wooly Boots, " though I can't remember why for the life of me. The men who work the oil rigs generally work periods of some time; then have some time off, the better to allow them to drink an ocean or two of alcohol at their leisure. But, of course, Tomas is no longer working, he'd sure be dangerous if he were, and he's a nasty, stinky, unmanageable full-time drunk. Mind you, the Scots are hardly known as teetotalers, and the Scandinavians, with their six dark winter months, well...
So Kaisa sets out for Norway to find Tomas; that she does. But between his drunkenness and her temper, they are unable to board a plane, and must drive back: road trip, anyone? This particular road trip follows the conventions of the genre. Kaisa and Tomas discover more about themselves, and each other, than they may have wanted to. They get themselves in a lot of trouble; they'd never have gotten through it without the help of Ian Hart (Wonderland), as the kindly truck driver Clive. There will be some scenes that are almost unbearable to watch. If the movie weren't Norwegian made, and, perhaps, even though it is, it might be described as tartan noir: there's a high level of violence, it surely is bloody-minded, and without the occasional leavening humor, it really might be unbearable.
It does seem to take them quite a long time to get from London to Scotland, though to be sure they have a lot of business to get through on that drive. Also, oddly enough, the movie seems to be filmed entirely, or almost entirely, in Glasgow, no matter where it claims to be. At one point, they are in what I am sure is the magnificent, paneled interior of Glasgow's main train station-- it must have been designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh, that city's famous favorite son architect-interior designer, or at the very least, by a student of his-- while they claim to be in Edinburgh.
The acting, with the cast this movie boasts, is superb. Charlotte Rampling makes the most of her few minutes of screen time and her death scene. Lena Headey is beautiful, and makes "Kaisa" so real you worry about her. Ian Hart is excellent as "Clive." But Stellan Skarsgard, a Swedish actor speaking English in a Norwegian movie set in Scotland: he's uncanny. He plays an almost unbearably convincing drunk.
Road picture it may be, but this movie does end up in an unexpected, touching place, as Kaisa and her father do at last seem to break through to each other. If you can stand the ride, the arrival's a great reward.
Movie Review: performance driven
Summary: 4 Stars
Stellan Skarsgard seems uncannily gifted at pulling off any kind of role asked of him. His range is astounding, but no more so than here in this small, probably little seen gem in which he plays an unemployed drunk who cannot get through a day without getting completely hammered, not wanting to face the realities of his life, apparently. He is, however, jolted back into reality when his estranged daughter Kaisa shows up at his doorstep in Norway insisting that he must accompany her to Scotland to visit her mother and his ex-wife (an always skillful Charlotte Rampling, even in smaller roles), who is dying in hospital. Kaisa is an intelligent, sarcastic businesswoman who, despite sharp tongue and tough exterior, has plenty of her own demons, which certainly helps her match her sarcastic, bitter, drunk father measure for measure when she has to. He agrees to go with her, but getting there turns out to be a gargantuan task when he won't stay sober long enough to fly; they must take a ferry, and Kaisa, impatient by nature, has to take command and babysit this giant drunk lump. She tries to keep it together, be different from him (unsuccessfully, as she too succumbs to a chemical path). Her frustration and the uneasy relationship between them is palpable, and both actors imbue their characters with equal parts strength and vulnerability without making the audience feel sorry for either of them. Though it seems in the end that they are not who they think they are, they still turn out to be two sides of the same coin-stubborn, self-destructive individuals adrift in the world, who remain bound together by their sameness. The sheer drama-ugly, pathetic human drama-that ensues as the girl tries to transport her father is bitter and realistic. The question remains why he decides to make a monumental sacrifice for her at the end? Because he feels obligated or because he knows, whatever blood ties they may have, they are in fact the only two people who understand each other?
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