Film

A blast of stylistic bravado in search of a stable structure, Reprise, according to its director’s statement, aims to capture the pangs of early-20s confusion in both form and content. In that regard, it succeeds: The film follows the changes of fortune of two Oslo friends, both aspiring writers: One, Phillip (Lie), is a success career-wise but a wreck personally, prone to breakdown and obsessed with his girlfriend (Winge); the other, Erik (Høiner), is outwardly competent but artistically strained, lacking the success that would give him credibility for an upwardly mobile breakup or the skill that would put him in a league with his idol, a reclusive, neglected, ostensibly ingenious Norwegian writer. The narration in the prologue and epilogue assumes the conditional—it’s all about what would have happened—while the title suggests a second chance. For all its chronological schizophrenia, the movie essentially has no tense but the present.

And as in life, you sometimes wonder if it all adds up. A distant relative of Lars von Trier, the writer-director pulls off some tour-de-force moments—a credibly beer-soaked party, Erik getting clotheslined by an overfriendly dog—but his aggressive virtuosity mirrors his protagonists’; somehow even a sarcastic use of Georges Delerue’s Contempt score seems pretentious. Consistent with the characters’ journeys, Reprise’s raw material leaves you eager to see other choices that might have been made.