Stream It Or Skip It

Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The Unthinkable’ on Hulu, a Swedish Disaster Saga/Domestic Drama That Survives on the Strength of its Gripping Action

Where to Stream:

The Unthinkable

Powered by Reelgood

Now on Hulu, The Unthinkable is a Little Movie That Could, an indie disaster-epic-slash-domestic-melodrama brought to life by Kickstarter donations and some apparent bootstrappy ambition. It eventually became a sleeper hit in its native Sweden and landed an international distribution deal, which now puts it in front of our eyes, making us wonder if it pushes the world-coming-down subgenre into fresh territory.

THE UNTHINKABLE: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: It’s 2005. Teenage Alex (Christoffer Nordenrot) is a withdrawn, quiet fella facing heartbreak on two fronts: His girlfriend Anna (Lisa Henni) is moving away, and his parents’ marriage is disintegrating. He learns music specifically so he can write a song for Anna, but he’s too awkward and pouty and hurt and angry to give it to her before she leaves. And then his mother takes off in the middle of the night, leaving him alone with his abusive father Bjorn (Jesper Barkselius). There are 99 better ways to handle this situation, and Bjorn chooses the stupidest and least logical one, and of course it’s violent. So Alex R-U-N-N-O-F-Ts.

Fade in: The current day, when Alex is a successful pianist, composer and electronic musician of sorts, playing to a large, attentive and appreciative audience. He quietly yearns for the piano he used to play in the church with Anna — you know, four hands on one instrument, and yeah, yowza on that metaphor. He’s still lonely and bitter. An explosion rocks Stockholm, and he steps outside his car and watches as a bridge crumbles. His mother dies in the blast, which is of mysterious origin, likely a terrorist attack, and now ties Bjorn to the plot because, A) Alex doesn’t tell his father about his mother’s death and B) Bjorn is a crackpot conspiracy theorist who believes the Russians are behind the bombing. OH NO, THE RUSSIANS ARE COMING, THE RUSSIANS ARE COMING, we say to Bjorn while pointing and laughing at his dopey tinfoil hat.

It’s the Midsummer holiday in Sweden, and rest assured, there are no ritual human sacrifices in this picture. While Alex is back in his hometown for his mother’s funeral, he seeks out Anna and they have a nice day together. He’s still pretty sullen, and even though it’s hard to be a hardcore navelgazer when the country keeps being attacked, he meticulously maintains his self-involved scowl like John Waters to his pencil mustache. Anna’s mother Eva (Pia Halvorsen) is a government bureaucrat of some kind, and a state of emergency is declared just before the parliament building is attacked. She watches as average citizens seem to be losing their minds due to some sort of mass hypnosis and/or chemical warfare, and if the debilitating brainfog descends when unwitting folks are behind the wheel, look out.

Bjorn works at the electrical power facility, and his dopey demeanor and a general ineptitude towards security at the plant has a real safety-inspector-at-the-Springfield-Nuclear-Power-Plant vibe to it. Somehow he’s the only one with half a brain left to defend the buttons and gauges and blinky lights and levers beneath signs that read DORRKONTROLLANLAGGNING from some very kill-happy gunmen who sure seem to be confirming Bjorn’s halfwit theories. Meanwhile, Alex and Anna contend with the apparent invasion by very hurriedly running and driving and such, and if you don’t catch a whiff of a reunion of long-estranged fathers and sons, it’s time to clear those sinuses with a little nasal spray, because it’s absolutely inevitable.

THE UNTHINKABLE MOVIE
Photo: Everett Collection

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: The Unthinkable is Red Dawn (the 1984 version or the 2012 version, doesn’t matter) with Greenland’s on-the-ground POV and the occasional smidgen of Children of Men-inspired action thrown in. And because it’s Swedish and has much domestic drama, should I invoke Bergman? Yeah sure why not.

Performance Worth Watching: Barkselius has us wondering if he’s found the perfect median blend of Nicolas Cage and Homer Simpson here (although I worry that I may be overselling the performance a little bit).

Memorable Dialogue: “Why am I always right?” — Bjorn adds fuel to the fire that’s utterly consuming the modern, highly destructive Age of Misinformation

Sex and Skin: None. TBBSADGATBSSMTF: Too Busy Being Sad And Dodging Gunfire And Then Being Sad Some More To F—.

Our Take: You know how the people in movies like 2012 and The Day After Tomorrow are as thin as paper dolls and consist of a few basic traits, one of which may be slightly quirky for comedic value, and if we’re feeling charitable, we understand that it’s hard to nurture one’s character depth when one is speeding along in a limousine mere inches ahead of an earthquake fissure or trying to outrun the killer frost? Well, The Unthinkable overcorrects for that, taking nearly an hour to establish Alex and Bjorn as miserable turds lugging around a lot of psychic Samsonite before getting to some thrilling, expertly executed action. And then director Victor Danell doesn’t hesitate to pause the fireballs and bullets for a little untimely, somewhat unconvincing introspection, as if Alex and Bjorn can’t get over or set aside their shit for the sake of their own basic survival. These men are Bad Decision Bobbies for life, and their lives just might end up being all too short because of it.

So The Unthinkable is almost dynamic to a fault, a lumpy and misshapen narrative that tests our patience with unlikeable, selfish protagonists — except maybe for Anna, who’s underdeveloped and skirting the edge of Manic Pixie Dream Girldom — and their persistent melancholy, then rewarding us with a wildly entertaining gunfight, fistfight or combination thereof. The action is rendered with enough brutal realism to be convincing, and these sequences rest somewhat uneasily inside a plot riddled with coincidences and implausibilities. The movie persistently teases out the mystery of what’s going on, encouraging us to keep driving despite the plot holes. It’s an enjoyable enough ride, although the climactic destination, a wannabe-poetic emotional release, is a corny misfire. Will these people get their shit together before their shit gets blown up? I won’t answer that, but we’ll care a lot more about what happens here than the fate of the limo driver in 2012, which is not nothing.

Our Call: STREAM IT. The Unthinkable tries a little too hard to do a little too much, but it’s nonetheless worth a watch.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Read more of his work at johnserbaatlarge.com or follow him on Twitter: @johnserba.

Watch The Unthinkable on Hulu