Virgin Mountain
Vic Theatre
Sat. Feb. 6, 8:45 p.m.
Rating: four stars
In contrast to its mountainous title character, Dagur Kari’s romantic comedy-drama is a slight affair. The Icelandic filmmaker’s portrait of this gentle giant, a middle-aged airport-baggage handler who still lives with his domineering mother and spends his days manipulating toy soldiers and tanks on miniature battlefields, is an endearingly offbeat voyage of romantic discovery, however. Gunnar Jonsson turns in a moving performance as this hulking, introverted creature of habit and victim of workplace bullying, who, after reluctantly taking line-dancing lessons he receives as a gift, finds love with a woman whose vivacity masks her own challenges. Expectations are subtly defied at every turn in this humanistic diversion laced with dry humour, an undercurrent of melancholy and a protagonist with arrested development who recalls to some extent Ernest Borgnine’s sympathetic Marty.
Ratings are out of five stars.