It didn’t take me very many seconds to realize that I would be bothered by the stilted dialogue for 3 hours. The dialogue is really beyond criticism if you count naturally delivered dialogue as something positive. There is nothing natural about the way the actors deliver their lines and I can’t believe anything other than that it is meant to sound like theatrical Swedish. That is the only possibility I can see. All other alternatives sound absurd to me. In any other case, the director should have discovered his mistake and corrected the nonsense.
The script, the story itself, also feels rather theatrically inspired. Somewhere on the cover of the film, comparisons are made to an Agatha Christie murder mystery and that is perhaps not such a stupid comparison. That is basically what it is about. A number of people gather in a cabin while it is snowing outside. Soon one of them is murdered and all of them are actually suspects in the crime. Everyone has had the opportunity and everyone has had a motive. Does that sound like Agatha Christie? Of course it does! There is even the possibility of reading a Miss Marple into the whole thing. If you want to.
It is quite contrived though and I assume that they are trying to develop the characters and make them three-dimensional. However, they do not succeed in this and it really just ends up being a pancake. The actors do manage to deliver emotions from time to time. But overall, it is impossible to take it seriously. I figured out who the murderer was a few minutes after the murder and had to suffer through one accusation after another from basically all the characters against the others. It was a bit too much for my taste.
Since it is a miniseries in two parts, the length is an unnecessary 3 hours. This could have been shortened considerably as I find a whole lot of unnecessary rambling along the way to the goal. Especially since the murderer’s identity did not come as a surprise to me. However, I would like to say that the costumes are stylish and typical of the story, which takes place in a bygone era. It is difficult to say an exact time, but I would guess early 1900s, which might also explain the theatrical lagnuage. Anyone who wants to see a Swedish cross between Agatha Christie and Italian giallo (but without bloody murder sequences) should see this one. Anyone who wants to see quality entertainment with naturally delivered dialogue should avoid it like the plague.
