101 Reykjavík

Actor Baltasar Kormákur's first feature as director is an Icelandic slacker comedy with a quirky, lackadaisical, thrown-together feel. The most arresting image is of young Hlynur (Gudnason) prone on a mountain top, cigarette in mouth, as the snow settles to give him a light crust; not a picture of twenty-something ennui you'd turn up in Austin, Texas, then. Hlynur's anti-charisma (prescription specs, pudding-basin haircut) works for him - or maybe it's just lack of competition. Still living with his mother, he's already looking forward to drawing a pension, and struggles only to fend off the girls. Then his mother invites her Spanish flamenco teacher to stay over Christmas. Lola (Abril) is a sexy free spirit whose lesbian inclinations don't preclude a drunken fuck with Hlynur on New Year's. Only later does he realise that he's cheated on his mother. Worse, Lola may be pregnant with both his brother and his de facto son. Above and beyond his anti-hero's 'do nothing' vibe, Kormákur entertains some hazy notions about male redundancy, and how that might suit men more than they like to admit. The film's in danger of disappearing up its own inertia, but Abril's feisty, and you have to say it's a doozy of a hole Hlynur digs for himself.