101 Reykjavík tells the hilarious "coming of age story" of a thirty year old man dealing with real adult issues for the first time in his life. Baltasar Kormákur's 2000 film follows Hlyner, an unemployed thirty year old who has not grown out of his teenage years. He still lives with his mother, Berglind, in a small apartment in the center of 101 Reykjavík (101 refers to Reykjavík's area code) and spends his days at home relaxing and his nights at the pub partying. He has no passion for anything and avoids working at all costs. His lack of motivation even extends into his personal relationships as he only bonds with people he can party with. Relationships that take work, such as those with family members and with significant others, are too hard for Hlyner, and he does not even try to pursue them. His maturity level is also very low for a grown man. Indeed, his deepest thought in the beginning of the film is to wonder why porn is not shown on TV in the morning. Hlyner does not really live his life; he simply exists while the government and his mother care for him.Hlyner's "perfect" life cannot last forever, though, as one of his mother's close friends, Lola, comes to visit over Christmas. The two surprise themselves by having sex on New Year's Eve while Berglind is away. They act as if nothing happened when Berglind returns home, but the incident is hard to ignore as she and Lola announce their love for each other and their plans to live together. The relationship between Lola and Hlyner becomes more awkward when Lola announces that she is pregnant (presumably with Hlyner's child) and that her and Berglind plan to raise the baby together. While all of this is going on, Hlyner must deal with another girl that claims that he impregnated her. He has slept with her several times but has always rejected her attempts at a real relationship. He must now deal with the prospect of being a father and the responsibilities that go with it. The film centers on how Hlyner deals with these problems and his inability to address them maturely. In the end, he is faced with two options: grow up and take responsibility or give up and remove himself from the lives of everyone he knows.The absolute triumph of this film is its humor. The movie is funny from beginning to end without resorting to slapstick comedy or easy laughs. The humor does not arise from the acting, but from the situations themselves. The way the actors played their characters straight, without making it seem like the characters are winking at the camera telling us "this is funny," allowed the script to take over and create humor. The part of Hlyner was played particularly well. His immaturity and inability to deal with the crazy situations in the film is incredibly funny and drives most of the humor throughout the movie.Another way this film succeeds is how it embeds real social issues into a lighthearted black comedy. Firstly, Hlyner must cope with his mother's coming out as a lesbian. While he initially acts in a politically correct manor, Hlyner does not really know what to think of the situation. He cannot deal with it emotionally and has further problems when he learns that Lola is carrying his son. This confuses him as he does not know how the child will be raised or how his family will be organized. Will he be the boy's brother or father? Can the boy be raised by all three of the apartment's residents? Do Lola and Berglind have the right to decide the boy's future when Hlyner is his biological father? Another issue brought up by the film is the abuse of the welfare state. Hlyner is completely living off of unemployment benefits. He does not even try to find work and takes it for granted that the state will take care of him for his entire life. Lola challenges him on this and encourages him to find a job and do something with his life. Issues like these give the film intelligence and relevance. However, they do not overshadow the film or take away from its comedic values.One last success of the film is Kormákur's use of several non-vocal covers of the song "Lola." Originally about a transvestite, the 1970 song by The Kinks is perfectly used to enhance scenes with Lola and Hlyner. But the real success of the score does not come from the appropriateness of the song; the score succeeds because of how slightly different versions of "Lola" can create completely different emotions in the viewers. It is amazing how one song can follow Hlyner's emotions from his initial joy of having Lola to party with, to his fear after he and Lola sleep together, to his contempt for her as she carries his son. This one song creates a perfect atmosphere for the film as an immature Hlyner deals with the emotional problems that Lola's presence causes.101 Reykjavík does have a few problems. The film is very short (approximately 90 minutes) and would benefit from an influx of more story. The plot seems thin in some places and could be expanded upon. Also, Hlyner's mother had an abnormally small part in the movie for being quite a major person in Hlyner's life. Seeing more of her could have added to the relationships in the film. These complaints, however, are small when compared to the ways that the film works. 101 Reykjavík centers around some serious topics, but these issues are woven into a charming comedy that is incredibly enjoyable to watch.9/10

'101 Reykjavik', directed by Icelandic director Baltasar Kormákur in 2000, and based off the novel by the same name by Hallgrímur Helgason offers a melodramatic look into the changing cultural landscape of Iceland as they enter the modern world through urbanization. 101 Reykjavik also depicts an oddly comedic coming-to-age story that turns the main character's mundane lifestyle upside down into a quirky wake-up call to enter the real world.'101 Reykjavik' is the story of an almost 30 year-old man by the name of Hlynur. Hlynur has no job, and doesn't really care to find one, while he enjoys downloading porn in the daytime and going out to the bar in Reykjavik and getting smashed- usually hooking up with a girl almost every night. On top of all this, he lives with his mother. However, one day, along comes his mother's friend Lola, a Spanish flamenco instructor. Quickly, Lola adds a bit of foreign color and excitement to the movies landscape and to Hlynur's dull lifestyle. Lola, we find out, is a lesbian who is in love with Hlynur's mother, Berglind, who also shares this love in return. One night, while Berglind is away visiting her relatives, Hlynur takes Lola out for a night on the town and, unsurprisingly, gets smashed and has sex with Lola. Hlynur becomes torn by this hookup for he is jealous of his mothers and Lola's relationship. Yet, out of respectful for his mother, he wants to accept her lesbian relationship with Lola. The film comes to a climax when we find out that not only may the girl that he has been hooking up with may be pregnant, but also that he has impregnated Lola. Hlynur is pushed to the edge. We learn that the girl isn't pregnant with his child, but that doesn't calm Hlynur who knows that the child Lola is carrying is still his. The movie begins to come to a close with Hlynur beginning to realize that he needs to change his lifestyle and possibly enter the "real-world" that he had dreaded to be'come apart of.As my first Icelandic film '101 Reykjavik' was surprisingly pleasing and oddly comedic. By the end of the movie I was both engaged with analyzing the character of Hlynur while noticing symbolism to common universal themes such as coming-to-age, but also noticing themes that have becoming common for Icelandic film.The coming-to-age theme is overwhelming present throughout the film. As a man who still lives and relies on his mother, and on the government for that matter on unemployment checks, he sees no reason to work in life since he can easily live a happy life with what he gets and has to look out for no one. With the progressing pregnancy of Lola Hlynur begins to realize the child is on the way and he, out of respect for his mother, but also realizing that he has to live with his mother and Lola, begins to realize he will have to care for his son/brother. With the arrival of the child Hlynur realizes his new life as a caregiver and comes out of his stubborn way of life. With an arguably religious scene where he is lying on a mountain covered in snow that starts to wash off with rain, Hlynur is cleansed of his past life- both his lazy lifestyle, and of his jealously over his mother and Lola. This scene is appropriately juxtaposed with the baptism of the child and both scenes are a complete turn away from the dark and gloomy tone of the whole film, offering for the first time a look at the true beauty of the natural landscape of Iceland.Seeing this juxtaposition with the rural landscape of Iceland for the first time presents us with the typically Icelandic theme of the rural vs. urban landscape that is representative of Iceland moving from a small and relatively unknown country into the modern-day landscape. The sense of disconnect felt by Hlynur between real-life and that of the entertaining, and of the depicted almost surreal lifestyle of the city, at least for me, could be representative of the whole nations struggle for finding its place in the new world, if not, at least a balance between the two. Hlynur's age of 30 also reminds me of Generation X- a transition generation between the old and the new- this could also be another symbolic element of the film as it shows that the young adults in Iceland are also at a disconnect with feelings of connecting their childhood lives from the 'rural' Iceland, with that of their adulthood lives in the 'urban' Iceland.If I were to offer any criticism of the film it would be that I felt the film stopped short of really offering an in-depth look at the characters in the film. While the characters were presented well I felt that it would have been interesting to go further in analyzing the nightlife lived out by Hlynur to further explore the generational disconnect. However, the awkward pause that is presented by looking at the in-depth nature of this could also be a cleaver way of expressing the awkward nature of Icelandic people themselves, and of their shy, reserved, and awkward lifestyle that is holding back any true expression.Overall, I loved the film, and would recommend it to anyone with in interest in looking at the lifestyles and personality of the Nordic people. This, coupled with an enjoyment of an old sense of disconnected humor, paints a beautiful melodramatic look into the changing cultural landscape of Iceland, while offering a fun and quirky coming-to-age story.

I have been living in Iceland for a year and a half and got a picture of the country, its people and its capital, Reykjavík (I actually even lived in the 101 postal code in Reykjavík). This movie is really highlighting a type of persons that I have met quite often in Iceland. I think it is a clear and accurate picture of an important part of the young population. The main actor, Hilmir Snær Guðnason (Hlynur), is really expressing this disillusion that you can feel while enjoying Reykjavík's night life. If you want to go to this marvelous country or if you just interested how one can survived after a few months winter night, this is the movie to go watching. But do not worry, there is more than that in Iceland.

Iceland isn't exactly known for it's thriving cinema industry and while I hardly consider myself an expert on the films of obscure European countries; I'm not sure that Iceland have had even one major success in film-making. They do, however, have this film; 101 Reykjavik, and it's actually quite good. The first thing you will notice about the film is it's downtrodden, gritty European style; which has already been implemented in a number of smaller European country's films, most notably those of Sweden's Lukas Moodysson, to great effect. As the film predominantly aims for realism, the gritty style bodes well as the story isn't exactly a happy one. It's more weird than anything else, and it follows an under-achieving waste of space called Hlynur. Hlynur is thirty years of age and still lives with his mother, and her friend Lola, who moved in with the two. After a drunken new years eve fling; Lola finds herself pregnant with Hlynur's child, and things get worse still for our protagonist when it turns out that Lola is something more to his mother than just a 'friend'...The character 'Lola' seems to have been christened that way so that the filmmakers could implement a techo-ish rendition of the hit Kinks song 'Lola' into the plot…ah, whatever. The film delights in it's obscure plot line, and most of the humour derives from that. The movie is actually very funny, and many sequences and dialogue exchanges in the film had me in stitches. The human relationship angle of the plot is the main focus of the movie, and the way that the film analyses what happens to it's characters as they are forced into this unusual situation is actually very good. The realistic acting gives the film more credibility for it's plot, and the gritty style gives it almost documentary feel, which puts the audience in the position of the voyeur; which in turn makes the film feel more like a cross section into Icelandic life. Of course, I'm sure that not every house in Iceland is like the one put forward in this movie... Anyway, the film constantly intrigues with it's plot and characters, and although the ending feels somewhat out of place; the rest of the film is good and although this isn't a masterpiece or a must see; it's not bad, and definitely worth watching.