Credit: Netflix

Everybody always brings up A Man Called Otto now whenever emotional comfort films get mentioned, and okay, valid, because Tom Hanks absolutely carried that remake. But, but, but we need people to stop sleeping on A Man Called Ove because the original Swedish version is genuinely gorgeous, and that too in its own different way.

Lowkey, a huge reason the remake worked so well is that the original story already had such a strong foundation to begin with. It’s like they always had the structure; they just needed to finish the construction.

The film came out back in 2015, and it’s based on Fredrik Backman’s novel, which exploded internationally because readers got way too emotionally attached to this grumpy old man and his neighbours. Then director Hannes Holm adapted it into a film, and before you know it, people outside Sweden started discovering it too. And when we say the movie had people crying globally, we mean it literally ended up getting Oscar nominations! For a small Scandinavian drama… That alone should tell you how hard this thing hit people’s emotions.

The actual story of A Man Called Ove sounds so simple at first. Ove, played by Rolf Lassgård, is this widower living in a housing community where he spends most of his time arguing with neighbours over parking rules and random regulations as if they were national security concerns. But underneath all the grumpiness, he is carrying massive grief after losing his wife, Sonja, and you can feel it in basically every scene.

At the start of the film, he completely shuts himself off from everybody until a loud young family moves in next door. These people refuse to leave him alone. Which, honestly? Thank God they did!

And that’s exactly what makes the film so good because it never turns Ove into this lovable, sweet old man overnight. He stays stubborn, awkward and difficult. And we have to give the makers full credit for his character development, which is basically the backbone of this film. The film lets him be frustrating while showing why he became that person in the first place.

And his relationship with Parvaneh is the heart of the whole story because she does not let this man scare her for even a second. Every interaction between them starts off funny; then all of a sudden, you will feel it in your veins.

Rolf Lassgård is such an underrated actor, and this film proves that. His performance deserved way more attention outside Scandinavian cinema circles, in all fairness. It would’ve been so easy to play Ove as this cartoonishly miserable old man yelling at everybody for two hours straight, but Lassgård gives him this exhaustion underneath all the anger that made him feel more human and relatable. Even during the funniest scenes, you can still see the sadness. Ugh. It’s so good!

What’s even more lovable about A Man Called Ove is that it cares about the little things in life, like routines, neighbours, little conversations, you know, tiny everyday stuff. And don’t go in looking for a big plot twist. This film is for emotion seekers.

So if you loved A Man Called Otto and never watched the original version, this is the time to get out of your comfort zone and stream this gem.