It is almost impossible to believe that Kay Pollack's As It Is in Heaven was made only ten years ago in 2004 for it feels dreadfully more dated than that. This Academy Award nominated film, which is essentially the Swedish version of a Lifetime Original Movie with a domestic violence plot line to boot, follows renowned conductor Daniel Daréus (Michael Nyqvist) as he returns to his childhood home in the north of Sweden after suffering a heart attack in the middle of one of his concerts. As a kid, Daniel was ruthlessly beaten and bullied by his peers, but he escaped this harsh childhood with the dream of making music that would connect with people. Upon his return home, Daniel becomes the cantor for the local church choir and starts to bring the townspeople together though what he sees as the spiritual quality of music. Complications arise when Daniel confronts a jealous church pastor, an abusive husband, and various choir members who doubt the sincerity of Daniel's project. Unfortunately, the only remarkable thing about Heaven is how painfully generic it is.
Everything in this film is simple and dull, as if the story arcs, characterization, dialogue, and music were all clumsily smashed into creation by a blindfolded kid with an unwieldy sledgehammer rather than by a skilled artist with a deft touch. The problem begins with a weak script that relies entirely on meager clichés. For example, our hero, Daniel, is the stereotypical passionate artist, but he's severely lacking in depth. All we know is that he loves music, falls in love with a girl, and then dies, both randomly and predictably. His foil, the uptight Pastor Stig (Niklas Falk), is disturbed by Daniel's free-flowing ways and surpasses Daniel only in one-dimensionality. In a particularly ridiculous scene, Stig gets into an argument with his wife, Inger (Ingella Olsson), over his conservative ideas about sexuality. Stig slut- shames his wife, explodes and has passionate sex with her, and then denounces the whole incident the next morning. This tired portrait of the repressed and hypocritical clergyman does nothing for the film, nor adds any interesting conflict or complexity.
Beyond the disappointingly shallow characterizations, Heaven makes a misstep with the plot's desperate grabs for sentimentality. There is, of course, the domestic violence plot line with the overdone, over-the-top abusive husband that makes a mere caricature of this real and important social problem. The issue is not that people like the outrageous abuser Conny (Per Morberg) do not exist in real life, but that he and his wife, Gabriella (Helen Sjöholm), are written in such a hollow way so as to make it seem like the professionals behind Heaven have never actually encountered a real human being who has been involved the cycle of abuse. In the end, Heaven exhibits a detached artificiality that undermines the film's attempt to say something meaningful about the tragedy of abusive relationships and about the empowering triumph for those who survive them. Then there's Tore (André Sjöberg), the young man who is at first shunned and underestimated by members of the choir for his intellectual disability and then ultimately accepted. Despite the fact that the film obviously casts Tore in a positive light, it is nothing more than cheap idealization. Heaven doesn't demonstrate respect Tore as person or a character, but instead uses him as bait for warm fuzzies and reduces him to the object of a patronizing smile.
The film's dialogue also betrays some serious flaws. Heaven takes little advantage of the filmic medium, and the characters often end up explaining their motivations and feelings outright rather than illustrating them through distinctive behavior, well-written characterization, and revealing cinematic techniques. For instance, when Stig shuts down the choir, he yells at Daniel unnecessarily, "I'm taking the choir away from you!" Later when Inger criticizes Stig's vendetta against Daniel, she shouts, "You're not angry at him, but at what he evokes in you!" Of course, the English subtitles may not capture the exact essence of the original Swedish, but the fact remains that a truly solid script would be able to communicate its themes without any of these clunky verbal explanations.
Some movies are disappointing in their failure to live up to their full potential, but As It Is in Heaven is not one of them. Wobbly from the start, Heaven is terrible in a boring kind of way. Perhaps time is partly to blame for how stale the movie feels, and it is possible that in its day, Heaven had some aura of charm and novelty. However, in 2014, it's difficult to see through the haze of bathetic storytelling and overdone conventions.
Everything in this film is simple and dull, as if the story arcs, characterization, dialogue, and music were all clumsily smashed into creation by a blindfolded kid with an unwieldy sledgehammer rather than by a skilled artist with a deft touch. The problem begins with a weak script that relies entirely on meager clichés. For example, our hero, Daniel, is the stereotypical passionate artist, but he's severely lacking in depth. All we know is that he loves music, falls in love with a girl, and then dies, both randomly and predictably. His foil, the uptight Pastor Stig (Niklas Falk), is disturbed by Daniel's free-flowing ways and surpasses Daniel only in one-dimensionality. In a particularly ridiculous scene, Stig gets into an argument with his wife, Inger (Ingella Olsson), over his conservative ideas about sexuality. Stig slut- shames his wife, explodes and has passionate sex with her, and then denounces the whole incident the next morning. This tired portrait of the repressed and hypocritical clergyman does nothing for the film, nor adds any interesting conflict or complexity.
Beyond the disappointingly shallow characterizations, Heaven makes a misstep with the plot's desperate grabs for sentimentality. There is, of course, the domestic violence plot line with the overdone, over-the-top abusive husband that makes a mere caricature of this real and important social problem. The issue is not that people like the outrageous abuser Conny (Per Morberg) do not exist in real life, but that he and his wife, Gabriella (Helen Sjöholm), are written in such a hollow way so as to make it seem like the professionals behind Heaven have never actually encountered a real human being who has been involved the cycle of abuse. In the end, Heaven exhibits a detached artificiality that undermines the film's attempt to say something meaningful about the tragedy of abusive relationships and about the empowering triumph for those who survive them. Then there's Tore (André Sjöberg), the young man who is at first shunned and underestimated by members of the choir for his intellectual disability and then ultimately accepted. Despite the fact that the film obviously casts Tore in a positive light, it is nothing more than cheap idealization. Heaven doesn't demonstrate respect Tore as person or a character, but instead uses him as bait for warm fuzzies and reduces him to the object of a patronizing smile.
The film's dialogue also betrays some serious flaws. Heaven takes little advantage of the filmic medium, and the characters often end up explaining their motivations and feelings outright rather than illustrating them through distinctive behavior, well-written characterization, and revealing cinematic techniques. For instance, when Stig shuts down the choir, he yells at Daniel unnecessarily, "I'm taking the choir away from you!" Later when Inger criticizes Stig's vendetta against Daniel, she shouts, "You're not angry at him, but at what he evokes in you!" Of course, the English subtitles may not capture the exact essence of the original Swedish, but the fact remains that a truly solid script would be able to communicate its themes without any of these clunky verbal explanations.
Some movies are disappointing in their failure to live up to their full potential, but As It Is in Heaven is not one of them. Wobbly from the start, Heaven is terrible in a boring kind of way. Perhaps time is partly to blame for how stale the movie feels, and it is possible that in its day, Heaven had some aura of charm and novelty. However, in 2014, it's difficult to see through the haze of bathetic storytelling and overdone conventions.