Involuntary (De Ofrivilliga)

Human folly in its rich variety gets a brisk, chilly airing in Involuntary, an inventive ensemble piece from first-time Swedish director-writer Ruben Östlund. Using a sprawling cast comprised largely of unknowns and non-professionals - with one notable exception - Östlund paints a coolly non-judgmental comic picture of the appalling things people do to each other, and to themselves, when weak will, peer pressure and plain foolishness come into play.

Involuntary’s lack of a clear narrative line may make this a hard sell, but brittle wit and an inventive shooting style should give this film a boost with art-house buyers looking for fresh, non-conformist auteur material.

Involuntary’s brittle wit and an inventive shooting style should give this film a boost with art-house buyers looking for fresh, non-conformist auteur material

Taking its time to gel into an overall picture, Involuntary at first seems to be a series of vignettes, set in Sweden as summer approaches. Five strands gradually emerge, all dealing with characters getting ever deeper into uncomfortable situations.

At a family gathering, an elderly man has a mishap with a firework. At a school, a young teacher demonstrates to her pupils the dangers of peer pressure, then has to make a choice when she witnesses a colleague abusing a pupil. Two young girls get progressively drunk, taking precociously sexual photos of themselves, before pestering a shy man on the subway. When a group of men go on an outdoors bonding weekend, alpha male Leffe (Johansson) teases a colleague with homoerotic horseplay that crosses the line into sexual harassment.

The most entertaining strand is an extended one, involving a coach journey on which the driver - embittered by a recent divorce - stubbornly insists on remaining stationary until one of his passengers confesses to committing a minor breakage. The culprit is a well-known actress who keeps mum about her infraction; when someone else finally pleads guilty, it’s the film’s most excruciating and indeed pathos-laden moment.

Presented as a progression of self-contained fragmentary vignettes, which seem to start and end arbitrarily, the film rather resembles a droll equivalent of Michael Haneke’s similarly structured Code Unknown. The social comedy, however, is closer to that of Neil Labute or Todd Solondz, depicting the enmities, aggressions and imperfections that can make everyday life tip over into horror. Favouring a softer approach than these satirists, however, Östlund tends to lead his characters close to catastrophe, then pull mercifully back. Ostlund is out not to punish his characters, but to have us share their embarrassment and identify with their weaknesses.

The digitally-shot film is framed with consistent inventiveness and rigour. He and DoP Marius Dybwad Brandrud contrive to hide characters’ faces, cutting them off at the neck (or indeed, showing only their legs), obscuring them with windows and doorframes, or shooting from behind. The large cast of players - faces visible or not - give their all, running the gamut from self-effacement to outrageous exhibitionism.