In the midst of big SxSW premieres at the Paramount, I had to slide next door to the lovely Stateside Theatre to see the Euro comedy NORTHERN COMFORT with filmmaker Hafsteinn Gunnar Sigurðsson and crew in attendance.
ABOUT: A special forces veteran, an uptight property developer, an influencer with half a million followers and an incompetent instructor are thrown together on a high-end fear of flying course. The course’s final challenge is an experience flight from London to Iceland, which ends up being a horrendous ordeal. Lost in Iceland, freezing and terrified, they must find a way of facing their fears and working together to spread their wings… and fly.
JASON’S REACTION: Almost from the first few minutes, I was getting the heavy vibe of filmmaker Ruben Ostlund in how FORCE MAJEURE and the recent TRIANGLE OF SADNESS makes great commentary on comedic manners and the differences in the class structure. In NORTHERN COMFORT, it’s a few different walks of life that are part of a class on overcoming their fear of flying. It’s all odd and awkward comedy, and a big takeaway here is Timothy Spall as one of the classmates with his facial expressions and reactions which is a total highlight of the picture. The movie gets even more crazy with the actions around a hotel in Iceland and a final sequence where our fearing flyers have to take on a jet that’s a little bit bigger than they expected. I’m not sure if this will find too big of an audience here but with its solid talent on screen it might work for a streaming release or VOD over theatrical.
This film and many others like it showed at South By Southwest this year from March 10-19. For more information on this and other titles, point your browser to www.sxsw.com!