The Rules for Everything (2017)

The Rules for Everything: Directed by Kim Hiorthøy. With Natalie Press, Tindra Hillestad Pack, Pavle Heidler, Ingrid Olava. When 10 year old Storm’s father disappears, and her mother dwells into making instruction films with an eastern European guru, she has to decide which rules the world has to come down to, not to completely become a chaos.

“I wanted to like this film, as I think much of Hiorthøyu0026#39;s creative output is interesting, but I just could not relate to this movie in any way. The acting was good, as far as I can tell. And I did like how he experimented with the visuals. Of the stories told, the one with the girl that goes to job interviews was quite alright. But thatu0026#39;s as far as I can go on thing I liked about this movie. That said: it does seem that many people relate to it on some level, and that I am the exception here. So if youu0026#39;re reading this before seeing the movie, remember that it might still be right up your alley.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThe premise this movie is based on is given away in the beginning: there are rules for everything. That is, rules in a big sense, including u0026quot;criteriasu0026quot; and anything unwritten. The narrator is a child, who is trying to make sense of the world around her and all of these rules (in a sense). But we also see adults struggling with the same thing. Thatu0026#39;s about how deep it goes. All of the movie relates to this in some way, but does not really expand upon that central premise. I thought it was interesting as the movie started, but by the time the movie was over it had managed to make it completely uninteresting (to me).u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eI think the performances in this movie is good, but many of the situations and the dialogue they are performing is also, well, with little substance. And this is a movie that tries to give of the impression that itu0026#39;s loaded with meaning. Itu0026#39;s like that the ambition is u0026quot;I want this to be this kind of movieu0026quot; instead of u0026quot;I want this to be a movie that raises these questionsu0026quot;.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003e(Thereu0026#39;s also some odd decisions in editing. Thereu0026#39;s a scene near the end of the movie where one character faces his fear. But it seems like the movie is intent on the audience understanding what the result of this will be, instead of letting it surprise the audience.) Hiorthøy is creative and talented, and some of the ideas in this movie are good. Itu0026#39;s just the final package that really did nothing for me, despite others watching it clearly having a good time.”