Film reviews: The County

The County (12A) ***

The Lovebirds (15) *

You might not anticipate a film about the tensions between rough-hewn Icelandic farmers and their local co-op to have the intense drama and wry deadpan humour of The County. On the other hand, writer-director Grímur Hákonarson has form here: his last film was the cult hit, Rams (2015), where two elderly sheep farming brothers butt heads, with only their devotion to their flocks in common.

Inga (Arndís Hrönn Egilsdóttir) is just as dedicated to her dairy herd. At the start of The County we watch her patiently drag a calf out of a cow by its forelegs. Rural life is tough and all-consuming, but with strong connections to the land and animals – Inga has names for each one of her hundreds of cows. And why not: it’s a cold world out there. At night she and her husband Reynir (Hinrik Ólafsson) fall into a squashy double bed, with a “night-night” reminder to call the inseminator, before dropping into exhausted sleep.

Like most of the farmers, they are in arrears to the local co-operative, which operates a monopoly in the area. They can only sell on their milk to the co-op, and have to buy supplies from there too, even though there are cheaper deals to be had online or direct from Reykjavik. After Reynir dies in a mysterious accident, Inga discovers that their debt is even bigger than she thought, and her mild resistance to the dependency on the cooperative and its corrupt head (Sigurður Sigurjónsson, who also starred in Rams) becomes outright rebellion.

What follows is a David and Goliath battle in heavy, hand-knitted jumpers. Other farmers are reluctant to join Inga in railing against this single dominant enterprise because everyone is connected to the co-op and has been compromised in some way. Even Reynir was forced to inform on farmers who bought supplies from outside companies, to avoid foreclosure on the farm.

Hákonarson is descended from farmers, and certainly knows this territory: at one point he had planned to make a documentary about the control of Icelandic co-operatives, before deciding that many farmers in the community would find it too difficult to speak up.

As drama, The County may eschew big speeches and big references, but it clearly nods to the undermining of communal effort and the implacable creep of monocultures and global companies. It also serves as a showcase for the marvellous Egilsdóttir, an Icelandic theatre star making her lead debut here. At times Inga is the only patch of flame-haired colour against rural Iceland’s wintry skies and vast treeless landscapes, and when she resolves to take on the company strangling her community, she blossoms into fiery acts of sometimes comic defiance, at one point taking her red tractor down to the co-op’s headquarters and hosing it down with milk.

Here’s some advice for screenwriters using “Romantic Comedy for Dummies’’ to shake up the genre: skip the chapter on couples on the run. Originally set for a cinema release, The Lovebirds casts Issa Rae and Kumail Nanjiani as a couple whose relationship has hit the buffers but are forced to stay together after their car is hijacked by a killer, who uses it to run down a cyclist. To clear their names Jibran (Nanjiani) and Leilani (Rae) race around New Orleans collecting clues, dodging the police, finding a change of clothes and stumbling across a masked secret society with a sideline in Eyes Wide Shut-style orgies.

Directed by Michael Showalter, whose last film, The Big Sick, was also a romcom starring Nanjiani, this is another of those movies that mashes up the comedy of reconciliation or rekindling a relationship with the chase thriller. Both romantic comedies and thrillers live by their screenwriting. A decent version of either is hard to come by. An entertaining combination of the two is tantamount to ambidexterity. The Lovebirds is closer to amputation. A torture scene involving a panful of hot fat may have seemed edgy on the page, but it makes laughter dry up faster than a mouthful of lemon juice.

Another problem is that the film has no interest in the nuances or potential comedy of faltering relationships. Of course, the writers are not obliged to care about the places where love goes to die, but The Lovebirds’ alternative priorities are like discards from Martin Scorsese’s After Hours or the low-fi 2010 release Date Night – shrill bickering, a strikingly awful and ugly murder and meandering, dull “have you noticed” observations from Nanjiani about milkshakes and the pointlessness of cigarette lighters in cars. Have you noticed, Hollywood scriptwriters, that these lighters were replaced by 12VDC power outlets several years ago?

Sometimes stunt casting can save the day – in Date Night, Steve Carell and Tina Fey genuinely appeared to like each other, bouncing off each other with the chemistry of an old married couple. Nanjiani and Rae have all the chemistry of H2O.

Still, their chase does occasionally throw up blips of laughter such as a goofy singalong to Katy Perry’s Firework, or when Nanjiani’s job as a documentary filmmaker is scorned as making “reality shows that no-one watches.” Otherwise, this movie spins its wheels through frenetic, meaningless plot developments disguised as a narrative. At least on Netflix, no-one has to shell out for a babysitter to watch this on date night, but this slapdash film is strictly for the birds.

Alistair Harkness is away

Film reviews: The County | The Lovebirds