Harry and Sonja (1996) User Reviews

Offbeat and Quirky and all those other art-house adjectives

[nedtsoaptalk · 3/10 · 8 February 2011]

I watch a lot of Scandinavian flicks and TV shows. Most are really decent. Some are outstanding. This one just laid there for me. Look, I'm American and somewhat well read (an oxymoron, I know), but the themes that were being put across in this tale of two disconnected married people were somewhat beyond my grasp. Maybe it was very localized, what with all the social welfare state allusions to Harry's wife housing all the mixed-bag of refugees from the street. Maybe it pointed towards Sweden's altruistic nature of her yearning to move to Africa. I have no idea what Sonja's deal was. Her husband is a wacky, with a capital "W," mercenary, shooting red paintball bullets at passersby and commiserating with a sad-sap Harry, but he, along with everyone else here, is nothing but a cardboard "representative" of something. There's no real, 3-dimensional human beings in this film. So, if you're not up on Swedish life or are not quite in tune with their brand of social satire, this may baffle you too. Pop singer Regina Lund makes a brief appearance as Harry's unfixed focus of a mistress, and vet Per Oscarsson practically jumps off the screen with a giddy pulse as Harry's bon vivant dad, but even they can't raise the bulk of this stale 90 minute Odd-yssey out of its screwball tiresome morass.

Harry works at an mental asylum and gets sacked while his wife plans to move to Tanzania

[johnericbackstrom · 10/10 · 24 July 2006]

This is a hidden gem of a movie from Swedens probably biggest international star Stellan Skarsgård. He plays Harry a man with a wife, 7 kids and a mistress. If I were to label this movie I am not sure what to put it under, sure it has its funny sides and its dramatic sides. Around Harry there is a brilliant cast of weird characters, his wife a modern mother Theresa who has turned their home into a refugee camp, Sonja his mistress and her mercenary husband, Harry's brother the owner of a porn-shop who is allergic to naked bodies and many others. The movie tells the story of Harry and somewhat Sonja who both aren't happy in their relationships. Both Harry and Sonja gets fired from their low income-no education jobs and basically try to regain happiness.

The acting is great and the script is full of weird quirks and humor.