Review of North (2009) by Eszter B — 10 Aug 2016

'North' is a powerful tale of one man's journey to meet his 4yr old son, a son he has only recently found out exsisted. The story is based around the character of Jomar, a man who has lost his wife as well as most of his life to mental illness.

Jomar has 'recovered' from his illness and now lives in a small cabin at the top of a ski resort where he works. He is incredibly unhappy and feels he is going no where in life, one day he is visited by his ex-best friend who is now with his ex-wife, he tells Jomar that he has a 4yr old son, that the child is definetely his.

This gives Jomar a second wind in his life as he packs in his job (with style) and sets off on a road trip to find his son. Jomar travels the whole 890 something miles by snow mobile and then by skiis, on the way Jomar gets help and shelter from three very different people, a feisty young girl, a twenty something bigot, and an old man living in a remote tipi.

These people, although very different, are all feeling the effects of isolation, the vast setting of snowy Norway helps set that feeling in from the get go. Each encounter that Jomar has is very funny, in fact this is a VERY funny film as well as an emotionally deep and warm one too.

An example of this is, in one scene a very nasty death is done in such a way as to make it the funniest part of the film. 'North' reminded me very much of David Lynch's 'The straight story', just reading the synopsis of 'North' made me think of the latter.

Is 'North' better than 'the straight story'...in my opinion no, and i'll tell you why. 'North' is a very engaging film, with a warm hearted story, wonderful characters, as well as many laughs that verge on making it a 'feel good' film.

The only problem the film had for me, was it's short running time. I really felt the film should have maybe been abit longer, mainly because we are following Jomar on a very long and potentially dangerous journey and is extremely enjoyable doing so.

When the film arrives at its long awaited destination it ends abruptly, and in doing so cuts us off from a character we have only just started to love, of course this is a very small complaint in the grande scheme of things and only goes to show how much I genuinely enjoyed this film.

..so much so that I wanted slightly more. 'North' sucks you in and immedietley warms you to its characters and their problems, the humour is spot on throughout and is very deadpan at times. A very simple story but an important one, this one is definetely in my top 5 films of 2009.