Welcome to my 2026 project honoring the first quarter of the 21st century. In this extremely lax project I watch a movie from each year to hopefully give myself some insight with what has changed within cinema during this century. At the very least I’ll have watched 25 interesting films and paired them with a dinner inspired by the movie, the place its from, and maybe a little bit of nostalgia for the past 25 years. You can watch along with me or find out what’s up next by checking out the full list of movies.
Today’s feature is from the year 2006, we are headed to Norway to discover monotony in..
Movie: Den brysomme mannen [The Bothersome Man]
Year: 2006
Director: Jens Lien
Country: Norway, Iceland
The Elevator Pitch: Andreas arrives in a strange city where he is given a job, a house, a wife, and everything else he could ever want but it’s not enough.
How Was the Movie?:
I did not enjoy this movie. I think it’s probably the most 2006 movie someone could have made and it sits in that area of man pain that I find genuinely uninteresting. From 20 years in the future the “boo hoo I have everything given to me and a good life and I am still an unhappy” is not something I feel anyone will find particularly sympathetic in our age of widening inequality and social strife but also the guy in the film seems so in the wrong that I don’t know why I would sympathize with or for him at any point which made the viewing experience, yes, bothersome. If you want to watch this movie you’re better off watching Wristcutters.
At points I feel the movie wanted to be a poignant social commentary about how Norway is full of people who do things routinely without question but also that sucks that life out of everything but everyone around him actually does seem happy and unbothered. I just kept getting stuck on the fact that he has things handed to him and he can’t be even muster up bland acceptance for that. People spend their time picking furniture and eating fancy food and ignoring any music or art except they don’t. They play sports and design things but the movie frames these activities as wrong, bad, and devoid of meaning. If that sounds like the start of an anti-consumer screed you’d be forgiven for mistaking it for one except the movie never becomes interested in getting into that and instead has our protagonist pursue base desires and rock the boat to his own detriment most of the time.
The movie is definitely influenced by Brazil or The Stepford Wives but it’s a more Don’t Worry Darling than masterpiece. I tried to understand people seeing this as a movie about anxiety or not fitting in socially but it doesn’t fit with the tone and actions in the movie at all. The main character is simply a selfish man whose behavior is causing issues for other people – not because of some naivety or inability to understand or conform to society but because of direct choices he makes.
In the end this movie is floating somewhere between “the last person allowed to have a midlife crisis” and “it’s not all men but it’s just so many men who are like that, isn’t it.” I have thought about this movie a couple times since watching and it definitely gets me very heated with how much I disliked it so there’s probably more ideas to mine out of it but I don’t want to do the work to find it because I did find the man very bothersome!
It’s also implied that Norway is some sub-altern hell and again, I can appreciate being a person who has different values from the culture you’re born into but it’s not even directly critiquing Norway or capitalism or some specific point about society so it feels paper thin at every turn.
Because it’s 2006 in the movie we’re in full swing for computers and cell phones. Several people have and use cell phones, many things have modern LED faces, and the main character has a thin screen work computer in their office too! Welcome to the modern world everyone, I guess it’s bland!
What was for Dinner?:
For dinner I made a very traditional Norwegian stew, Lapskaus which is traditionally made with beef which I don’t eat so I made mine with chicken. It’s also generally made with lots of root vegetables including potatoes but I wanted to at least be a little adventurous and since it’s still winter I decided to use zero potatoes (!) in it so there’s parsnips, celeriac, rutabaga, carrots, and leeks. This was so good and so hearty and thick that I barely used my spoon to eat it and mostly picked it up with the bread.
The bread is the traditional flatbrød which is just flour, water, salt which is rolled super thin and then generally cooked on a dry skillet. I put these in the oven because I didn’t want to mess around with stove top cooking that day and I think it was a mistake because they didn’t come out exactly how I wanted them to. I added some caraway seeds for interest but it didn’t taste of much honestly. It got the job done but I can see why these are generally made on a flat skillet. This is one of those things where buying the commercially available version is probably better since they’ll have them perfectly uniform width and be properly flat. Mine were surprisingly thick and more like wonky matzo or a Ritz cracker with extra crunch.
Either way this was a super fantastic meal that I will be making again which is great because my last foray into Norwegian food did not go well. It’s always nice to see a comeback king 🙂
That’s it for 2006, see you in the future year of 2007!