I read this book many moons ago and didn’t particularly like it. Sean’s 92 year old Grandma read it too and she didn’t like it either, because the book made fun of former presidents, and she’d “lived through all that.” Though if you can’t make fun of anything that happened during her nearly 93 years, it’s reduced me to cracking plague jokes and doing neanderthal bits.
I wasn’t overly excited about seeking this out when it became a movie, but out of respect for its Oscar-nominated makeup job, I decided to give it a go.
It literally is about an old man named Allan who, on his 100th birthday, avoids his nursing home many-candled cake by climbing out a window. He doesn’t exactly disappear though – at least, not to us. We follow him out the window and on to an incredible series of events, 
including a suitcase full of drug money and a homicidal elephant, which is still secondary to the other trip he takes, the one down memory lane.
It turns out Allan has led a pretty incredible life, in part because his love of blowing shit up, and in part because he’s routinely been in the right place at the right time.
It stars Robert Gustafsson, a well-known comedian and actor in Sweden, who just happened to be less than half a century old when he shot this film. This presented a real challenge to the team who did the makeup and prosthetics as we see Allan not just as a 
centenarian, but through many decades of his life thanks to a series of flashbacks.
Whether or not you like this film will depend a lot on your tolerance for absurdist humour. There are high-jinks upon high-jinks here, and they add up to a sweet film with some chuckles that obviously has some appeal, but the movie, like the book, left me feeling like it should have been so much more.
ASSHOLES WATCHING MOVIES 
This book had me in stitches from start to finish. Guess it’s just one of those things
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The jokes are pulled off a bit better in the book, though my favourite part was still discussing it with Grandma – damn she’s a critic when she wants to be! 😉
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I’m a bit of a historian (just the arm to be precise) so I loved the alternate history mishaps of Allan’s meetings with presidents and the such, the elephant just underlined the absurdity of it all. I was tempted to see the film but knew it wouldn’t quite capture the essence of the book
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Not heard of either Jay, and it sounds a bit daft. 🙂
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Well the book was apparently an “international best seller” – if you hang out in book shops at all, you’d probably recognize the cover. The movie is a small Swedish affair so I’m not surprised that not many have heard of it.
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Think I’m too old to be watching movies about old people 😊
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This just doesn’t appeal to me in the slightest. It sounds like it could have been great but comes up as meh.
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Hmm another one I never heard of ?;( I’m kind f intrigued …
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Absurdist humor? Okay, count me out.
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This may be one I will see someday on the library shelf for movie dvd loans, then I will try it! 🙂
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I loved the first half of the movie. Especially the beginning. But the Forrest Gumpiness of the last part got old fast.
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I have been meaning to watch this again for a long time, I don’t remember shit! This has me looking forward to seeing it again:
“Whether or not you like this film will depend a lot on your tolerance for absurdist humour”
I love me some absurdist humour! :D:D
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The title is just too funny:p
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