A MAN CALLED OVE is the comic and touching tale of Ove (Rolf Lassgård,) a stubborn, short-tempered and cantankerous widower who is given a new lease on life after meeting a new and very different neighbor.
Based on the eponymous international best-selling novel by Fredrik Backman, and adapted for the screen by writer-director Hannes Holm, A MAN CALLED OVE, is one of Sweden’s biggest hits, and won the 2016 Audience, Best Actor, and Best Make-Up Guldbagge awards (Sweden’s Oscars).
Ove (Rolf Lassgård) is a widower, recently downsized out of his longtime job, and the grumpiest man on the block. Despite being voted out as president of the resident’s association years ago, he could not care less and still polices all neighborhood infractions with an iron fist. When pregnant Parvaneh (Bahar Pars) and her family move into the house opposite Ove’s, they accidentally back their car into his mailbox, beginning an unexpected friendship between the curmudgeon and his newest neighbors. Unfolding in both the present and the past, writer-director Hannes Holm gradually reveals the events that have led a sensitive and resourceful small town boy to grow into the older man whose prickly exterior is but a facade for a rich, multi-layered, and ultimately poignant character.
Prominent actor Rolf Lassgård started his career on the Swedish stage where he has performed Shakespeare and Brecht. His breakout film role was in the 1992 Min store tjocke far, for which he was awarded the Guldbagge Best Actor Award. His extensive film and television credits include Kjell Sundvall’s The Hunters, the Academy Award nominee Under the Sun, Susanne Bier’s After the Wedding, and the SVT TV-movie 1994-2007 adaptations of the Henning Mankell novels in which he played the iconic lead character Kurt Wallander.
Lassgård will next be seen in Alexander Payne’s upcoming film, Downsizing.
Credits:
Running Time: 116 minutes
Language: Swedish and Farsi (w/English subtitles)
Rating: PG-13
Written and directed by Hannes Holm.
Cinematography by Goran Hallberg.
Edited by Fredrik Morheden.
Makeup by Eva Von Bahr, Love Larson.
Starring Rolf Lassgård, Filip Berg, Ida Engvoll, Bahar Pars, Tobias Almborg.
Produced by Annica Bellander, Nicklas Wikst Nicastro.
Executive producers, Fredrik Wikstrom, Michael Hjorth.
A Music Box Films release.