‘Reprise’ Umbrage

We love the New York magazine guys, they do great work and seem like good people, but we take serious umbrage with their 2008 Best of Films piece that concerns the great Norwegian film “Reprise.”

Directed by Joachim Trier and starring what are essentially two non-actors, Anders Danielsen Lie, and Espen Klouman-Høiner, “Reprise” is a vibrant and magnetic film about friendship, success, love and mental fractiousness (basically) and its easily one of the year’s best films (here’s our effusive review). IMDB’s short logline synopsis is: “Two competitive friends, fueled by literary aspirations and youthful exuberance, endure the pangs of love, depression and burgeoning careers” and that pretty much does it justice.

It’s a quibble, but a thorn in our side is NYMag essentially calling the Norwegian film, ‘Charlie-Kaufman-like.’ “Who knew the next-best Charlie Kaufman would actually be two guys from Norway?”

Umm, no. While they are correct about this part, “Joachim Trier and Eskil Vogt’s screenplay for Reprise begins with a pair of dizzying flash-forwards, then zigs and zags with the brash, spiraling energy of the two young writers it follows…as a whole, the script is a show-off showcase of postmodern tricks, mirroring its literary protagonists, but each individual line rings true,” but comparing it to Charlie Kaufman is reductive, lazy shorthand 101-ism that NYMag is generally above.

Sure, it quick magazine-speak that give the audience the basic idea, but you will find nothing in “Reprise” that is anything like the work of Charlie Kaufman, period. Let’s not give people the wrong idea (plus “Reprise” is about 10,0000 times better than, “Synecdoche, New York.”) Umbrage rant over.