Movie Review - The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed out the Window and Disappeared

The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed out the Window and Disappeared ****½ (out of 5) (R) One of the best perks of reviewing movies is finding gems like this droll Swedish comedy I might have otherwise failed to notice. Here’s your chance to climb aboard a sweetly amusing geriatric variation on a Forrest Gump adventure, with surprisingly incisive bits along the way. Both simple protagonists had little apparent intellect or ambition; both participated in more amazingly important events than they could have realized or intended.

Allan Karlsson decides his life deserves a better final act than his nursing home offers, including the plans for his centenary party. He bolts just as they’re about to wheel the big cake into his ground-floor room. That allows his exit, even without a strategy. He wanders to the nearest station, seeking whatever ticket he can afford that maximizes distance, regardless of direction or destination. He unwittingly winds up with a suitcase bulging with some mobster’s money, and the chase begins. Allan meets a delightful bunch of folk along the way, interspersed with informing us about his incredible life’s journey in voiceovers and flashbacks. Where he went, who he met and what he did or witnessed before this tale’s present makes Tom Hanks’ famous character seem like a relative shut-in. To be fair, before defenestrating himself, Allan’s life had run about three times longer than Forrest’s pre-bench saga.

As Allan collects new friends while eluding the zealous pursuit of gangsters, their minions and the authorities, the antics escalate without sacrificing any of the story’s offbeat charm. This should appeal to all who enjoyed the whimsical eccentricities of Napoleon Dynamite, Harold & Maude, The Castle (my own Australian fave); or earlier fare like The Madwoman of Chaillot and King of Hearts that cast doubt on who the crazies among us really were - the inpatients, or those who made the diagnoses. Plenty of farcical action with sly insertions of satire. That’s a complete package...and a great find. (5/29/15)