Rom (2024) - Bendixen and terrific trio win with great romcom

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A beloved trio of seasoned actors in one of the world's most beloved cities tease on this poster for Niclas Bendixen's Rom

Gerda and Kristoffer have been married for 40 years and have been gifted a vacation in Rome by their daughter. But when they happen upon Gerda's old Swedish art teacher there, the stay gets thrown on its head, and old secrets and truths start to seep out.

Rom is written by co-writer/co-star Kristian Halken (A Funny Man/Dirch (2011)), co-writer/executive producer Christian Torpe (Rita (2012-20)) and co-writer/director, great Danish filmmaker Niclas Bendixen (Ditte & Louise (2018)). The original Danish title translates to 'Rome'.

The film's motor is first and foremost its star trio: Halken as the delightfully frank and ordinary man Kristoffer; Bodil Jørgensen (Hvide Sande (2011, TV-series)) as the more vivacious Gerda, whose buried passions are unearthed by Rolf Lassgård (Min Pappa Marianne (2020)) as the expat hedonist. They all three give delightful performances in a film that bursts with a sense of spontaneous fun and lightness.

Manuel Alberto Claro's (The Pact/Pagten (2021)) cinematography imbues the Roman holiday that encompasses the entire film with this sense of 'real-life' and spontaneity. The plot and lines are funny, filled with fine little details and unpretentious but charming turns. Underlying the misadventure rests a keen wisdom about love and marriage, and Bendixen and his stars capture this very well in a genuinely funny, very successful romcom that also wins on lots of lovely local Italian flavors in the guise of performances, locations and vocabulary.

 

 

Watch a trailer for the film here

 

Cost: 2.592 mil. €, approximately 2.8 mil. $

Box office: 1.01 mil. $ and counting

= Uncertain

[Rom premiered 3 February (Göteborg Film Festival, Sweden) and runs 98 minutes. 1.347 mil. € of the film's budget came from a DFI subsidy. Shooting took place in Rome, Italy. Bendixen's mother passed away suddenly during shooting. The film opened #1 in Denmark, where it has sold 90k tickets to date and plays in the Biografklub Danmark/Cinema Club Denmark, meaning that a large portion of its patrons pay only half prize. It is set to release in Sweden on 5 April. Bendixen does not have his next film announced yet. Jørgensen returns in Seaside Hotel/Badehotellet (2013-) and theatrically in B.O.Y - Bruises of Yesterday; Lassgård in Whiskey on the Rocks (2024, miniseries), with no theatrical return announced yet; and Halken's return is not announced yet. 67 IMDb users have given Rom a 7.4/10 average rating.]

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