Editor’s Notes: 100 Year Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared is now available on Blu-ray and DVD.
Moments before a retirement home throws a 100th birthday party for one of its patrons, a centenarian walks out the window of his room, saunters down the train station and buys a ticket to a sparsely populated town in the middle of nowhere because its as far the change in his pocket will take him. Thus begins Felix Herngren’s The 100-Year Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared, a dark and sprawling road trip comedy based on Jonas Jonasson’s best-selling novel that ultimately went on to become the highest grossing film in Sweden.
A dark and sprawling road trip comedy based on Jonas Jonasson’s best-selling novel that ultimately went on to become the highest grossing film in Sweden.
Playing out like a macabre fusing of Forrest Gump, Being There and Amelie, the film stars Robert Gustafsson as Allan Karlsson, the 100-year-old in question. The quintessential Swede, Allan is an extremely passive protagonist. He befriends everyone he meets, from Franco to Reagan and everyone inbetween. He strolls through life, taking things as they happen and adapting in the way that best suits his needs. When an angry thug tells him not to watch a suitcase and not let go, he does, but he takes it with him out of the city without warning. When Allan and his continuously growing group of friends need to go into hiding, he leaves the decision up to someone with memory loss. Like Forrest Gump and Chance the Gardener, Allan leaves his fate to chance. Life is strange. Just sit back and let the beautiful madness unfold.
While Gustafsson does a good job portraying his character’s aloof nature, his greatest accomplishment is making Allan physically believable beyond the impressive work by the makeup department.
Allan is played by the 51-year-old Robert Gustafsson. A lot of Allan’s character rests on circumstantial humor and the ways in which other people interact with him. While Gustafsson does a good job portraying his character’s aloof nature, his greatest accomplishment is making Allan physically believable beyond the impressive work by the makeup department.
Allan’s journey that started out the window of a retirement home takes him through some pretty wild adventures and to some pretty interesting characters. Interspersed throughout the film are flashbacks to Allan’s younger years, where Gump-like interactions with important historical figures and monumental events are incredibly common. True to the film’s “throw everything at the wall and see what sticks” mentality, most of these flashbacks don’t really add much to the film and tend to do little more than bog it down. The film really shines in the present day, where zany road trip adventures ensue. Just like it’s title, The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out a Window and Disappeared is bloated and excessive. It’s humor is sometimes inexplicably too mean- spirited, but this movie is a nice 90-minute distraction.
Just like it’s title, The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out a Window and Disappeared is bloated and excessive. It’s humor is sometimes inexplicably too mean- spirited, but this movie is a nice 90-minute distraction.
