With
Reprise
, first-time director
Joachim Trier
effectively captures the
spirit of young adulthood
, and announces his arrival as a filmmaker to be watched. If you are young, male and dream of making a name for yourself in the arts, Reprise is about the j
oys and sufferings
of that quest: It is a
Jules And Jim
for the punk-rock generation. Stylistically bold, impressive feature debut about creative youth.
Two buddies
are taken down
different paths in life
when one becomes a success and the other fails to grab the brass ring in this
comedy drama
.
Erik
(Espen Klouman-Hoiner) and
Phillip
(Anders Danielsen Lie) are close friends who have known each other since they were children.
Erik and Phillip grew up sharing
a passion for literature
, particularly the work of novelist Sten
Egil Dahl
(Sigmund Sæverud) and they each dreamed of becoming
writers
themselves someday. Both Erik and Phillip completed
their first novels in their early twenties, but while Phillip's book was accepted by a major publisher and became a
best-seller
, Erik's book instead earned a sheaf of rejection slips.
The
harsh glare of the celebrity lifestyle
and his
obsessive relationship
with his girlfriend, Kari (Viktoria Winge), cause Phillip to suffer a nervous breakdown, and after a stay in a treatment facility he tries to resume his relationship with Kari and his friendship with Erik. Erik, meanwhile, is still struggling to join the ranks of the published, and his romance with Lillian (Silje Hagen) begins to fray as the frustrated would-be author spends more time with Phillip and his pretentious compatriots.
