Easy Money ****
Shorn of the facial hair and hoodie of his Holder character in "The Killing", Joel Kinnaman is a tight-mouthed pretty boy in the Swedish thriller "Easy Money". He's a nobody from nowhere, at once anxious and bold. He's studying economics, driving a taxi for a guy named Abdulkarim, hanging out with his social betters -- looking for some way in to the good life. Naturally, he joins a gang of immigrants from the Middle East and Latin America as they prepare to smuggle in a load of cocaine from Germany. Oh, and did I mention the Serbian gangsters who have declared war on them?
The ironic title of Daniel Espinoza's tighly-constructed film refers not only to the challenging nature of the drug trade, but also to the harrowing difficulties of Scandinavian social climbing. Espinoza, a Swede known to American audiences for "Safe House" with Denzel Washington, is half-Chilean, so maybe he should know.
The drug war here is plenty exciting, but we've seen that before. What makes "Easy Money" worth watching is the overlay of class war. When the golden heiress played by Lisa Henni falls for Kinnaman's deceitful striver, the two gorgeous, ultra-blonde Swedes look like a perfect pair -- but we know they don't belong together. Meanwhile, the drug trade is populated by swarthy men with dirty hair -- the sort of visually obvious outsiders who've been wrecking things for homogeneous societies all over Europe for decades. Yet we see the blondies snort coke, and a monied banker bargain with the crooks: The elements of this uneasy society may be separate, but they are connected.
If "Easy Money" leaves you hungry, Krundt has some suggestions:
Whit Stillman's "Damsels in Distress" is an impossibly arch comedy of manners, depicting the efforts of three deeply deluded young women to set social standards at Seven Oaks college. This was my introduction to the subtle performer Greta Gerwig, whom I hadn't noticed in the hectic remake of "Arthur", and to the ambition of creating an international dance craze, in this case The Sambola! Stillman is an acquired taste, a self-aware throwback, obsessed with his private fantasy version of a homogeneous upper class in the United States. You get doofi; the dread triad of suicide, depression, and donuts; plus a character named Thor. Can't help it: Stillman makes me laugh!
"Monsieur Lazar" is the deservedly praised story of an Algerian refugee who takes over an elementary-school classroom in Montreal. Deeply touching -- heartwarming and almost unbearably sad -- this story gives us a vivid, emotional experience of the mutual incomprehension of compatriots lacking a common culture and history.
"A Separation", which won the Oscar for best foreign-language film in 2012, gives us a peek at Iranian culture from the inside. A story of a marriage under stress, it suggests the intricate workings of a way of life that the white-bread Eurotrash snobs of "Easy Money" would not deign to notice.
"Incendies", a superb film about which Krundt wrote (here), takes an adult Canadian brother and sister back to embattled Lebanon, to discover the horrors of their mother's life in the old country.
Finally, "Headhunters," a Norwegian thriller via Jo Nesbø, whose writings Krundt has had occasion to dismiss. It's thrilling enough, but you won't believe a minute of it. "Easy Money" is the one to see first.
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See also:
Gorging on TV
Oscar Roundup 2012
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Unstoppable
Incendies
A Somewhat Gentle Man