Wives III

Ten years after Wives: Ten Years After, and the three friends reconvene aboard a tram touring the late-night streets of Oslo: a surprise birthday-party for Kaja (Medboe), who's reached the 50 mark. She, Heidrun (Armand) and Mie (Ottersen) spend the next two days together, recounting, recollecting, reflecting, revaluating, bemoaning and celebrating life as 'wrinkled and weathered, wonderful women', with the city's Independence Day celebrations in the background, and a stolen bust of Norway's national poet somewhere in between. Breien again collaborated with her three leads on the writing, to similarly naturalistic effect. If formally slight, this well-seasoned and eccentric blend of wry comedy and candour provides a rare perspective on a constituency sorely under-represented in cinema.