1001 Grams

Director Bent Hamer's latest film serves up a poker-faced satire of the Norwegian scientific community, while also drifting into romantic-philosophical territory. Attractive young scientist Marie (played with cool Nordic reserve by Ane Dahl Torp) is entrusted by the Institute of Weights and Measures with making sure that the Norwegian kilo prototype gets to the International Kilo Conference in Paris with its weight intact (apparently not as easy as it would seem). Maria robotically makes it through the conference but meets another scientist along the way who slowly but surely seduces her with his sneaky French suavity. 1001 Grams nicely succeeds in its representation of a particular way of life: Marie lives the liberal Norwegian dream in a community of people who exist in boxy modernist lookalike houses, drive comically tiny electro cars, and wear drab clothing—all evoking the Scandinavian dichotomy of individuals craving recognition but not wanting to stand out from the crowd. Although ultimately the film lacks philosophical heft (faltering when it tries to turn the kilo into some sort of metaphor for the weight of life), it's still a reasonably entertaining foreign rom-com. (M. Sandlin)