Oslo Stories Trilogy: Sex Review
The final release in Dag Johan Haugerud’s Oslo Stories trilogy is Sex, a film that seeks to upend the presumptions behind such a direct title, yet only manages to confuse viewers with its unrealised intentions.
Containing no visual sex at all, Sex is set up to have been a great commentary on physical connection. However, Haugerud’s approach to such an intrinsic human phenomenon (like in Dreams and Love) is to create characters with either a weak moral compass or an overbearing one—and disappointingly, let them figure out the rest themselves.
The resulting narrative arc is underwhelming: we watch two unnamed men in heterosexual relationships in pretty-much nuclear families have a mid-life crisis; one much more than the other. Our two main characters are chimney sweeps: one is the superior of the other and is embarrassed to be Christian, while the other has questionable views on physical infidelity. A challenge to empathise with, yet once again, Haugerud’s novel scriptwriting skills come in clutch.
His construction of such an organised narrative—clear-cut exposition, quick problematisation, mixed-success character development, and an open-to-interpretation conclusion—makes it challenging to remain frustrated at Sex and its 2-hour runtime. As the film finishes with an awkwardly inconclusive Christian devotional performance featuring some interpretative dance, we’re left wondering what question Haugerud is encouraging actors Jan Gunnar Røise and Thorbjørn Harr to answer.
Is it that sex is destructive? Is it more than physical, as seen by Harr’s character’s wife and her reaction to his infidelity with a man? Or is it that sex is merely the product of desire—a natural craving and yearning that longs to be fulfilled, as seen by Røise’s character’s gender-fluid dreams featuring David Bowie?
There are, yet again, moments of greatness—if fleeting—that hint at the excellent potential Sex had. While Harr’s character’s wife navigates her jealousy, hatred and insecurities around being cheated on, Harr’s performance as a man crippled with naivety is utterly compelling. As is his wife’s, played by Siri Forberg, as she battles with the only real attempt at revelation the film provides: sex is freedom, and if she denies her husband this, does she deny him his freedom?
Regardless, no question gets truly answered, and it becomes apparent that Haugerud’s trilogy begins stronger than it ends, with its conclusion offering very little (if any) of the nuanced musings on the human condition than its first instalment, Dreams. Sex is a film so determined to remain true to its urban minimalism that it fails to offer up much of substance at all.
★★
In UK cinemas August 22nd 2025 / Jan Gunnar Røise, Thorbjørn Harr, Siri Forberg / Dir: Dag Johan Haugerud / Modern Films / 15
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