From Amazon.com
Sexy Spaniard Victoria Abril heats up the wintry city of Reykjavík in
101 Reykjavík. Icelandic slacker Hlynur (Hilmir Snær Guðnason) lives on welfare with his mother, leading a depressed and aimless existence. His mother invites her flamenco teacher, Lola (Abril), to live with them; while his mother is away for New Year's Eve, Hlynur and Lola have a drunken fling. But upon her return, Hlynur's mother tells him that she and Lola are lesbian lovers--and it soon comes out that she and Lola are going to have a baby together.
101 Reykjavík seems to be the contemporary Icelandic version of American movies of the 1970s like
Five Easy Pieces, in which antiheroic characters struggle to make sense of a world that doesn't seem to have any place for them. The movie is a bit unfocused, but its urban malaise feels genuine, if not particularly new. Abril is delightful, as always.
--Bret Fetzer
Review
Hlynur (Hilmir Snr Gudnason), the protagonist of Baltasar Kormkur's debut feature, isn't shy about defining what exactly it is he does: "The nothing kind of nothing." Unemployed, disaffected, and still living with his mother (Hanna Mara Karlsdttir), the aimless twentysomething is the standard-bearer for this mordant slacker comedy. The movie takes place in the titular city, the Icelandic capital, where Hlynur endures all sorts of pressing burdens: perpetual boredom, a whiny girlfriend, and the encroachment of adulthood. Into this stultifying world comes "Lola" (Pedro Almodvar regular Victoria Abril), a flamenco instructor from Spain who gets impregnated by Hlynur but is in love with his mother. Helped by its underseen setting and a game cast, the movie proves to be a likable, if lightweight, entry in an overpopulated genre. It has its faults: the infusion of Mediterranean heat into the snowbound household is a touch formulaic, and Hlynur's knowing solipsism can at times be annoyingly affected. Kormkur largely earns our goodwill, however, with his jaunty pacing and inclusive world view, not to mention his use of a hilariously cartoonish take on the Kinks' "Lola" by Blur frontman Damon Albarn. Always assured and, at times, even flashy, 101 Reykjavk is an estimable first feature that tabs Kormkur as a name to watch. ~ Elbert Ventura, All Movie Guide