Film

Films on the topic of youth and young men tend to stick to a predictable bildungsroman template (“That was the summer that changed my life…”), while movies about aspiring authors treat the channeling of muses as something holy or hedonistic. But director Joachim Trier’s dizzying, delirious feature about two twentysomething novelists finding their way not only beats the odds, it’s easily the freshest debut to come along in ages. Imagine the intellectually dense pathos of Masculine-Feminine and the punk puckishness of Trainspotting filtered through a Nordic lens darkly, and you’re halfway there.

Longtime pals Phillip (Danielsen Lie) and Erik (Klouman-Høiner) have both completed their first novels. As they simultaneously mail off their manuscripts, a narrator whisks them through potential futures involving critical praise, Parisian jaunts, breakups, breakdowns and each reencountering the other after years of absence. Some of these montage daydreams will end up coming true; others remain fantasies. Whether the duo endures fame or failure, the literary cubs are still left vainly trying to chart a chaotic adult life already
in progress.

Norway’s former skateboarding champion, Trier has a keen eye for the way overeducated, self-conscious males use culture as a shield against growing up; these guys can drop references to postpunk bands and heady philosophers far more easily than they can engage with a world that requires emotional maturity. Even more remarkable is the director’s ability to channel an anything-goes style redolent of a generation steeped in pomo slickness and make it feel organic rather than obnoxiously hipper-than-thou. That Reprise captures the agonies and ecstasies of that transitional postcollegiate moment without resorting to Apatovian gags is impressive enough. Trier’s blend of genuine coolness, flesh-and-blood characters and a portrait of creative types that hits marrow, however, is a hat trick we’d gladly watch ad infinitum.