One immediately wishes the couple in “Meeting in Rome” an amicable divorce
Published 2024-04-05 09.46
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full screen “Meeting in Rome” Photo: Paolo Ciriello
Meeting in Rome
Directed by Niclas Bendixen, with Bodil Jørgensen, Kristian Halken, Rolf Lassgård
MOVIE REVIEW. In the Danish blockbuster “Meeting in Rome” a triangle drama takes place where Rolf Lassgård plays one of the actors.
DRAMA/COMEDY. Gerda (Bodil Jørgensen) and Kristoffer (Christian Halken) has been given a trip by his daughter: they will be able to celebrate their 40th wedding anniversary in Rome. Before the taxi reaches the hotel, their diametrically different personalities have been established, and one has already had time to wonder how they came to be together in the first place and how they have endured.
She: red-haired, happy-go-lucky artist type on a return visit to the city where she once studied. He: grey, whiny, talks Vespers and football and is best at home. Also, the fact that his luggage has disappeared and that he has stomach problems have been made parts of his personality.
In fact, he is initially so boring that it feels too late once he is gifted with likable features. It is perhaps not the best conditions for any kind of romantic drama-comedy to immediately wish the main characters an amicable divorce and practical help with the moving boxes.
Instead, they get to spend a few chaotic days in Rome, which so many other cities in movies with locations in the title show from their most travel-ad-like side. Here there is a fruit market and happy jugglers in the streets, the taxi drivers dance in the square and the garbage men sing opera. Beautiful sunlight falls over the rooftops.
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full screen “Meeting in Rome” Photo: Andrea Miconi
In the midst of all this, Gerda and Kristoffer run into Gerda’s old lover/art teacher basically as soon as they step onto Italian restaurant grounds. Johannes, played by Rolf Lassgaard in its most bass-voiced and bombastic form.
Does he listen to the Danish rock band Gasolin, like Kristoffer? Of course not, he listens to opera because it’s “so nice to make love to”.
“Meeting in Rome” doesn’t get more subtle than that. Everything is said in the dialogue, nothing is implied, everything is painted with the broadest of brushstrokes and it’s only funny in spots.
As a love story, it also feels more miscalibrated than warm and grown-up complicated, which was probably the goal. It is difficult to the point of impossible to make the audience feel for adults who behave unforgivably like self-centered teenagers with no thought of consequences, and the director Niclas Bendixen does not succeed.
Shown in cinemas.
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full screen “Love is strange” Photo: Elder Ordonez / Parts & Labor
Instead, take the opportunity to see…
… “Love is strange” with Alfred Molina and John Lithgow if you fancy a love story with protagonists of a mature age.
Did you know that…
… “Meeting in Rome” has been seen by over 250,000 cinemagoers in Denmark?
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