Oslo August 31st is the second film, along with Reprise (2006) and The Worst Person in the World (2021), in Trier’s Oslo trilogy.
Grade: B+
The film pays homage to, and is loosely based on Pierre Drieu La Rochelle’s novel “Will O’ the Wisp” (1931) and Louis Malle’s featur, The Fire Within (1963).
The film’s protagonist, Anders is a recovering drug addict in an Oslo rehab clinic. Wile taking an overnight trip from the rehab, he meets an old girlfriend and then attempts suicide by walking into a lake. However, unable to go through with it, he returns to the rehab centre, where he does not mention his suicide attempt.
On 30 August, he is given a day’s leave to attend job interview in the city centre. But at 34, he feels too old to start over and is unenthused about the interview as an editorial assistant that he is applying for.
Anders does go to his job interview, but beforehand calls the girlfriend he was dating while he was on drugs, Iselin, and getting her voicemail, begs her to call him back.
At the interview, asked about the gaps in his resume, Anders admits to being a former drug addict, and abruptly ends the interview.
Anders heads to his old drug dealer’s place where he buys a gram of heroin. He then meets up at a bar with a friend of his and two pretty young women who are still in school. At the bar, Anders sees a man staring at him who he realizes is a man who Iselin cheated on him with. Before leaving, Anders tells him he forgives him, but the man is instead angry at him, telling him that the way he treated Iselin while they were dating was cruel.
Anders then goes partying with a group, getting drunk, making out, and going to a local pool about to be shut down the last day of August.
In his last call to Iselin, he apologizes for misbehavior, then retreats to his childhood bedroom where he shoots up.
The film premiered in the Un Certain Regard sexction of the 2011 Cannes Film Fest.
Quietly understudied but sharply observant, Oslo, August 31st is a powerful portrait of the dark journey f a drig addict, tole with empathy and compasion.
Cast
Anders Danielsen Lie as Anders
Hans Olav Brenner as Thomas
Ingrid Olava as Rebekka
Tone Mostraum as Tove
Renate Reinsve as Renate
