Social science runs gently amuck as Swedish efficiency experts invade the kitchens of Norwegian bachelor farmers. The time and motion studies the experts conduct are supposed to make it easier for the old guys to cook their dinners. But when one of the experts violates the rules by talking to one of his subjects, a very tender, sweetly comic relationship begins to develop in Lars Hamer's dry, delicate and deliciously deadpan film. The experiment, of course, goes south, but the film very honorably fulfills our hopes — so often crudely travestied — for humane but rigorously unsentimental movie-making.
Come fly with us, and Leo, through the best (and worst) of 2004. Tops in the cinema this year include Scorsese's Howard Hughes biopic The Aviator. Elsewhere, Deadwood was good TV, and a Strange tale fascinated readers.