Arts & Events

Opens May 15 at the Rialto Cinemas Elmwood (Rated R)

If you loved the movie Forest Gump, you'll adore The 100-Year-Old Man. And, if you've never seen Gump, you'll love this film even more. In any event, prepare to be bowled over by an inventive, original, and picaresque (dare we say "gumpish") screenplay that gives a good Nordic spin to a globe-hopping, time-traveling tale.

Based on a best-selling novel, 100-Year-Old Man, went on to become the top-grossing film in Swedish history thanks, in large measure, to the inspired, wacky genius of director, screenwriter, producer, and actor Felix Herngren.

 

 

Herngren's entertaining 114-minute adaptation chronicles the oddest of odysseys as it follows young Allan Karlsson from childhood to super-seniority. Along the way, Karlsson stumbles through some of the high points—and most of the low points—of the 20^th Century. Robert Gustafsson is the perfect choice to play Karlsson. A wildly popular Swedish TV and film comic, Gustafsson's invented TV characters range from bumbling gardeners to doddering codgers. He's a marvelous changeling. 

As the aged but agile centenarian at the heart of this romp (call him "Floris Grump"?), Gustafsson (marvelously transformed by makeup and body padding) actually does begin the film by exiting a window. But it's not what you would call a leap. It's more like a slow, carefully calculated slither. Nonetheless, it enables him to escape the confines of his nursing home only minutes before an adoring crowd of caretakers and media vultures arrive with a birthday cake topped with 100 candles. 

Perhaps "escape" isn't the right word. While Karlsson takes off on his unpredictable road trip at top speed, his velocity is on par with that of a sleepy (but determined) tortoise. 

Like Gump, Karl is an eternally naïve loner, a sweet but shallow fellow guided by a line of wisdom imparted by his mother. Instead of "Life is like a box of chocolates," Karl's motherly advice is more along the lines of "Don't think too much." Karl accepts whatever life throws at him with deadpan acceptance. This detachment may stem from the fact that Karl's emotional life was cut short in his youth. When his hobby of blowing things up draws the attention of the authorities, young Karl is confined to an asylum where an experimental operation leaves him a eunuch – albeit a very unique eunuch. 

Karl's journey is simultaneously incredible and hysterical—especially, given the fact that Karl never cracks a smile but merely greets each new twist of fate with quite, studious bafflement. And, to be sure, there are many baffling encounters to be had—with Stalin, Generalissimo Franco, Harry Truman, Robert Oppenheimer and even a "Great Escape" fiasco with Albert Einstein's dimwit brother, Herbert. 

The historical flashbacks are movie magic and the "present-day" saga of Karl's escape and subsequent misadventures – with an international crime syndicate on his tail, no less—could be called "nail-biting" if it weren't for the fact that you'll be laughing too hard to focus your teeth anywhere near your fingertips. 

The road trip part of the caper percolates with wry observations and the director populates the film with a cast of memorable characters. (And when it comes to casting actors with extreme body types, Herngren doesn't hesitate to "go Fellini." There's even an elephant named Sonya.) 

Every frame and edit of The 100-Year-Old Man tells you this film was produced by a team that really loves and knows how to make movies. The story is endlessly inventive, the characters are wildly alive, the encounters are memorable, and the scenes are quickly and crisply rendered as the story sweeps viewers through time and across the globe from Sweden to Russia to Spain to New Mexico and beyond.