Scandinavian film with English subtitles. The main characters are Karen, her first (divorced) husband Even, and her second (current) husband Tord.

The two men are best friends. Even is the best man at Tord's wedding to Even's ex wife, who Even still loves. Only in a movie, right?

Actually, there is only one main character. Even. He is in love with Karen, she's married to Tord, and he's shit outa luck.

At Tord's wedding, Even comes right out and says to them all that it is the worst day of his life. How much plainer can you make it? And still, Tord leaves home for months for his job, leaving Karen alone in the house, and he asks Even to keep an eye on her when he's gone.

He's gone for a long time. Even hears through the grapevine that Tord isn't even where he's supposed to be. We get the impression that Tord is off having fun, ditching his pregnant wife. Even doesn't tell Karen that. But Tord calls Karen and tells her he will be longer than he planned, and when that conversation is over, Karen is thinking that he'll never return. She turns to Even. Though the movie doesn't show more than a kiss, later dialogue shows that Karen and Even had sex.

It looks like we're headed for a happy ending, with Tord having a ball in Bali, and with Karen living happily ever after with the man who loves her and always did, her first husband. Then all of a sudden Tord shows up. Oops. And he and Karen are back together. And Even is once again shit outa luck.

Even ends up killing himself by surfing during a nasty storm. Karen and Tord name their baby Even.

I wasn't sure of some of these details by just watching the movie, and I had to go to Wikipedia to explain it to me. For one thing, just watching the movie I didn't realize that Even and Karen were ever married. I thought he was just her boyfriend before Tord stole her away. Secondly, I didn't realize for sure that Even died at the end. They didn't make that clear.

I have a few complaints with this generally good movie. For one, the damn lack of clarity. At the end of Sundance movies, or artsy movies, it is a fad, a cliche, to leave the ending less than clear. That's in style, and it sucks. Why should I have to go to Wikipedia to know that Even died? That's a kind of important detail, that your leading character is pushing up daisies. Don't be cutesy about it.

Second, it is also a fad and a cliche to give an unsatisfactory ending. Nothing can just go right. It has to end in the wrong way. Otherwise it can't be an appropriately artsy and Sundancy movie.

I see it a bit like politics. The general run of movies, the blockbusters, are Republicans, stupid as nails, with all the same trappings, all the same shit, utter crap. The artier movies are the Democrats, much more intelligent, which just means not utterly retarded so don't get carried away, but vague, spinning in circles and not getting anywhere you want to be, lost in their own stupidity, fads and cliches.

I had it with the Democrats so I went to Showtime movies to see some hits, but they sucked too bad so I went back to the Dems. That's sad right there. With all their imperfections, at least they aren't stupid as shit. The smartest Republican I can remember in the presidential spotlight was Dan Quayle. At least he came out and said if his daughter wanted an abortion he'd support her decision. He was the best candidate the Republicans have had in decades, one hell of a lot sharper than either Bush or Reagan. Of the three most recent Republican presidents, the first Bush was the only one worth a quarter. The others were hopeless morons betraying America to the rich.