This curate’s egg of a film’s crude humour feels somewhat at odds with the big issues it’s exploring, even if doing so more or less sympathetically
Here is a highly unusual film. Not because of its subject matter, or its tone, but because of the unlikely marriage between these two things. On the face of it, the plot is that of a sensitive drama exploring the nuances of how multicultural integration in Norway might intersect with identity, particularly as regards transgender kids. The tone, on the other hand, is raucous and often off-putting with crude humour and throwaway references.
The fact that the script’s edgy maxims are casually thrown out by the young lead, Mahmoud (Ahmed Mohammed), compounds the tonal dissonance. Hearing a young Pakistani teenager say things that conjures the same kinds of cinematic universe as provocative turn of the millennium teen franchises such as American Pie is a little jolting to see in a film that is intent on tackling some big issues (and also coming from the lead, who would normally be the voice of reason contrasted with a more provocative secondary buddy character).
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