Out Stealing Horses (2019)

A grieving widower moves to the country where a chance encounter rekindles memories from his past.

Director:

Hans Petter Moland

Writers:

Hans Petter Moland (screenplay), Per Petterson (novel)

Stars:

Stellan Skarsgård, Bjørn Floberg, Tobias Santelmann

7 wins & 12 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Stellan Skarsgård	...	Trond
Bjørn Floberg	...	Lars Haug
Tobias Santelmann	...	Trond's father
Danica Curcic	...	Jon's mother
Pål Sverre Hagen	...	Jon's father
Gard B. Eidsvold	...	Franz
Jon Ranes	...	15-year-old Trond
Sjur Vatne Brean	...	17-year-old Jon
Torjus Hopland Vollan	...	10-year-old Lars
Tone Beate Mostraum	...	Trond's mother
Maria Alm Norell	...	Trond's daughter Ellen
Anders Baasmo Christiansen	...	Olav
Marie Blokhus
Ane Ulimoen Øverli	...	Cashier
Thorbjørn Harr	...	Lean Man

Storyline

November 1999: 67-year-old Trond (Stellan Skarsgård), lives in self-imposed isolation and looks forward to welcoming in the new millennium alone. As winter arrives he meets one of his few neighbors, Lars (Bjørn Floberg), and realizes he knew him back in the summer of 1948. 1948 - the year Trond turned 15. The summer Trond grew up. OUT STEALING HORSES is based on the bestselling novel by Norwegian author Per Petterson, which received several important international awards and was included in The New York Times '10 Best Books of 2007 (Fiction)'. Petterson's novels have been translated into more than 50 languages.

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Plot Keywords:

father son relationship | year 1999 | 1940s | widower | flashback | 

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Genres:

Drama | Mystery

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Certificate:

Not Rated

Did You Know?

Trivia

Tobias Santelmann, Pål Sverre Hagen and Anders Baasmo Christiansen previously worked together on Kon-Tiki (2012), as Knut Haugland, Thor Heyerdahl, and Herman Watzinger respectively.

User Reviews

these horses don't gallop

Watching movies at a festival has disadvantages. The second movie (or the next ones!) seen on the same day may catch you as a more tired spectator, or under the impression of the previous movie, or confused by the alternation of styles and genres. This is, perhaps, what happened to me watching the Norwegian director Hans Petter Moland's film 'Ut og stjæle hester' (or 'Out Stealing Horses'), a psychological drama with references to the relatively recent history, interestingly constructed, and benefiting from the participation of an excellent team of actors. And yet, although I really liked one of Moland's previous films ('In Order of Disappearance'), I was a little stuck watching this movie. The fault may be mine, but not only mine.

The story takes place in 1999, on the threshold of the millennium, that period exactly 20 years ago, when the entire planet was preparing for parties and was obsessed with the millennium bug. The main hero (the excellent Stellan Skarsgård) seems to be trying to run away from the world after he his wife had died in a traffic accident, buying a house in a village far from the turmoil of the world. It is precisely here that the past reaches him through the accidental encounter of a forgotten friend from adolescence. The film reconstructs through interleaved flashbacks the decisive summer of his coming to age, in the years immediately following the war that had left traces in people's souls and in the relationships between them. We progress in the remembrance of the past together with the old man. But how much of memory can be trusted after a lifetime has passed? Was the reality then known, understood, and especially as does it matter today?

The questions are interesting, but one of the problems of the film is that the scriptwriter (also Moland adapting a novel) and the director try to give them a little too explicit answer, along the lines of Buddhist philosophy. Another problem is the lack of dynamism in the evolution of the characters. The film is beautifully filmed and played brilliantly (by Skarsgård, but also by the young actor who plays him as a teenager, and by the whole team), and yet 'Out Stealing Horses' failed to captivate me, introduce me to the story, involve me. The distance between me and Scandinavia, its history, its people and problems, has not been completely eliminated in this film.

Details

Official Sites:

Official site

Country:

Norway Sweden Denmark

Language:

Norwegian Swedish

Release Date:

7 August 2020 (USA)

Also Known As:

Out Stealing Horses

Box Office

Budget:

EUR4,100,000 (estimated)

Cumulative Worldwide Gross:

$1,480,790

Company Credits

Production Co:

4 1/2 Film, 4 1/2 Fiksjon, Helgeland Film

Technical Specs

Runtime:

123 min

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1