As a lifelong fan of classical music and who has liked/loved a fair share of musical/composer biopics ('Amadeus' being one of my all time favourite films), there was a lot of interest seeing this biopic about Edvard Grieg, Norway's greatest composer.
It does pain me to say it, but 'Song of Norway' was a huge disappointment. Others have explained very well the numerous big flaws it has, and there is not much to add. As a biographical drama, it is a disaster, one of the worst to exist outside of a few good things. As a film on its own, 'Song of Norway' is also not much better. This is coming from somebody who really wanted to like it and was prepared to go against the grain/general consensus, which has happened before though critics and I are also often in agreement.
There are good points about 'Song of Norway'. The scenery is absolutely gorgeous and matched by some lovingly rendered cinematography. Grieg's music, while deserving better treatment being deserving of larger, longer extracts and a less 'The Sound of Music'-esque, except far more cloyingly cutesy (actually love 'The Sound of Music' as a film but that approach sounded wrong here), treatment, is a sheer wonderful delight.
Florence Henderson gives the best, and only, good performance. She actually looks engaged and the only person to make a lot of her role.
'Song of Norway' has so much wrong with it, however, including the single stiffest, dullest and severely erratically characterised (both over and under) performance of any composer on film, there may have been composers with more colourful personalities and more interesting personal lives, like Mozart, Beethoven, Liszt, Verdi, Wagner and Schumann (four of whom had biopics that did them justice), but Grieg was not this uninteresting.
Don't expect Robert Morley, Oskar Homolka or Edward G. Robinson to save things, they are given nothing to do and only Robinson makes effort to bring dignity despite being completely wasted. And how can you have interesting real life figures like Liszt, Andersen and Ibsen and do so little with them? It is the storytelling and direction where 'Song of Norway' most falls down. The film is far too long, easily could have done with being 45 minutes shorter, and goes along at a snail's pace with so much flimsy drama and static staging of musical scenes which makes the film often deadly dull. The direction is amateurishly static.
Editing should have been tighter and the dialogue is horrendously stilted.
All in all, a deadly dull mess aside from good production values, great music and one good performance. 3/10 Bethany Cox
It does pain me to say it, but 'Song of Norway' was a huge disappointment. Others have explained very well the numerous big flaws it has, and there is not much to add. As a biographical drama, it is a disaster, one of the worst to exist outside of a few good things. As a film on its own, 'Song of Norway' is also not much better. This is coming from somebody who really wanted to like it and was prepared to go against the grain/general consensus, which has happened before though critics and I are also often in agreement.
There are good points about 'Song of Norway'. The scenery is absolutely gorgeous and matched by some lovingly rendered cinematography. Grieg's music, while deserving better treatment being deserving of larger, longer extracts and a less 'The Sound of Music'-esque, except far more cloyingly cutesy (actually love 'The Sound of Music' as a film but that approach sounded wrong here), treatment, is a sheer wonderful delight.
Florence Henderson gives the best, and only, good performance. She actually looks engaged and the only person to make a lot of her role.
'Song of Norway' has so much wrong with it, however, including the single stiffest, dullest and severely erratically characterised (both over and under) performance of any composer on film, there may have been composers with more colourful personalities and more interesting personal lives, like Mozart, Beethoven, Liszt, Verdi, Wagner and Schumann (four of whom had biopics that did them justice), but Grieg was not this uninteresting.
Don't expect Robert Morley, Oskar Homolka or Edward G. Robinson to save things, they are given nothing to do and only Robinson makes effort to bring dignity despite being completely wasted. And how can you have interesting real life figures like Liszt, Andersen and Ibsen and do so little with them? It is the storytelling and direction where 'Song of Norway' most falls down. The film is far too long, easily could have done with being 45 minutes shorter, and goes along at a snail's pace with so much flimsy drama and static staging of musical scenes which makes the film often deadly dull. The direction is amateurishly static.
Editing should have been tighter and the dialogue is horrendously stilted.
All in all, a deadly dull mess aside from good production values, great music and one good performance. 3/10 Bethany Cox