Happy, Happy

This sprightly Norwegian comedy comes on like ‘Junebug’ by way of ‘The Ice Storm’. Middle-class couple Sigve and Elisabeth move with their adopted son Noa to a remote cabin. They meet the neighbours, innocent Kaja and gruff Eirik, and their boy Theodor, and its not long before the dividing lines between the couples begin to blur.The early humour derives from the city-country divide: Elisabeth’s icy sophistication versus Kaja’s guilelessness; bourgeois Sigve versus blue-collar Eirik. But then a poorly thought out racial element is introduced between the kids, and there are odd appearances by a boy band singing folk pastiches direct to camera. This is a thoughtful, nicely played melodrama, bordering on patronising in its depiction of rural folk, but staying on the right side of the line – thanks to sympathetic performances.