Wonderful and Loved by All is the adaptation of Martina Haag’s book, directed by Hannes Holm and starring Martina Haag, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau and Reine Brynolfsson.

Plot:
Bella (Martina Haag) is an actress. Unfortunately, she’s 40 and completely unsuccessful, broke and the desperate kind of single. In a last bout of defiance, she sends out her pimped resume to all major producers in the country, claiming, among other things, to be an acrobat. Much to her surprise, the Royal Theatre in Stockholm actually wants to hire her for an production of Twelth Night, directed by Ingmar Bergman – because of her skills as an acrobat. Drunk with joy, Bella decides to wing it all, especially after she meets her attractive colleague Micke (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau).

The film is nice, sweet, funny and totally shallow. A good choice when you want to spent a rainy afternoon at home (or at the movies), enjoying a European spin on a traditional RomCom that’s more Com than Rom.

I don’t know how autobiographical this film, and the book it’s based on, actually is. But watching the movie, you get the feeling that it’s quite a lot. And I think it’s very great of Martina Haag to take it all with so much humour. Being self-deprecating is one thing. Being self-deprecating in a bestseller and the film it’s based on quite another.

Seeing as Haag practically plays herself, she does a pretty good job. But also Nikolaj Coster-Waldau and Reine Brynolfsson were great. And I liked Ellen Mattson.

It was also nice to see a movie that was so European, it avoided the usual American-movie-pitfalls. For example, Bella doesn’t get everything she ever wanted at the end of the movie -fame, fortune, the man of her dreams –  but she gets a lot. And it’s good, too. In fact, the ending feels much less forced that way.

And it was really, really funny. Bella’s training sessions alone were very much worth seeing the film. Some of the jokes might have been a little too predictable, but I didn’t care.

Summarising: very entertaining. And who couldn’t love a movie that has Vienna as its romantic getaway city?