The Real Estate

Inheriting a run-down apartment building in Stockholm, a woman in her mid-sixties discovers that her relatives have been illegally subletting the apartments, while neglecting their maintenance. She wants to sell the building, but gets entangled in problems which become more surreal and nightmarish as she goes along.

While it's interesting and rare to see an elderly woman take on the sort of role usually filled by Bruce Willis types (the ordinary citizen driven to take the law into his own hands), this isn't enough to keep our interest. The scenes are shot in cinema-verite style with handheld cameras and grainy, almost monochrome closeups, but they are invariably held for too long, making the viewer want to doze off.

The discordant music in the sound track is MUCH TOO LOUD, painfully so. I suppose it is supposed to give you a feeling of immediacy, but instead it makes the whole experience more unpleasant.

Léonore Ekstrand is excellent as the harassed landlady, but she's not enough to make up for the pain and boredom that the film brings on. Still, it's a nice change to see a 67-year-old enjoying sex. It is Sweden, after all.