MamaGravity good back-story, and good acting

Tayloriona Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

Tymon Sutton The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

Kamila Bell This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

octopusluke Taking a break between poststructuralist slave drama Manderlay and the embittered, genitalia-snipping horror movie Antichrist, Danish provocateur Lars von Trier released this no-budget Danish movie The Boss of it All (Direktøren for det hele, på dansk). With a stripped down, quasi-Dogme aesthetic, and some of the best actors Denmark has on offer, this return to roots screwball sitcom instantly recalls the various incarnations of BBC's The Office. It's an intentionally lighthearted, but ultimately forgettable blip in this prodigious filmmaker's erratic career.Opening without a title sequence, we are greeted by the warm, nasally voice of Lars himself. Talking to the audience through speech, whilst we see his reflection in the window of the office building he is shooting, our humble narrator outlines that the following film will be "an unpretentious 'hygge' movie (the most untranslatable Danish word, roughly meaning cosy, fun and/or sexy)". In his typical, tongue-in-cheek manner, he continues to say that the film won't take up much of our brainpower, or require any afterthought. It's a bold, anti-artistic opening gambit, stolen first from Godard, and used previously in LvT's overlooked TV series Riget (The Kingdom, på engelsk). However, being the notoriously dubious filmmaker that he is, we're instantly questioning his intentions. There's no way LvT could make a flippant film about nothing, is there?Following the prologue, we meet out players. With his dwindling company on the verge of being sold, meek businessman Ravn (Peter Rantzler - Italian for Beginners, In China they Eat Dogs) hires the hapless method actor Kristoffer (played brilliantly by Jens Albinus - Dancer in the Dark, The Idiots) to pose as the previously unseen CEO, ready to sign the final payoff and break the news to the company's employees. It's a bonkers idea, played out in typical slapstick fashion, with Kristoffer trying to 'find' his character, with his reticent stares leading to bust-ups, marriage proposals, and 'over the ergonomic office table' bonks.Far from being a two horse race, Trier's script gives space for the ancillary characters to shine, but only insofar as Danish stereotypes will allow. There's the earthy Jutland farm boy Gorm (Casper Christensen), the red-blooded saleswoman Lise (Iben Hjele) and the hot- headed Finnish tycoon buying up the company (Friðrik þór Friðriksson). Also of note is the stunning Sofie Gråbøl as the contract attorney sealing the deal, and currently whipping Guardian readers into a frenzy as Sarah Lund in Danish crime series Forbrydelsen, aka The Killing.Whilst I wasn't thrilled by this one-dimensional farce, there is some depth behind all the levity and, 'how's your father' dalliance. With Kristoffer trying so desperately to flesh out the boss of it all character, mixed with Ravn's downplayed subservience, it's an allegory on the relationship between filmmaker and performer. Known for being such a difficult, resolute, and allegedly tear-inducing taskmaster, Lars von Trier's The Boss of it All is wryly telling everybody to lighten up. It's only a movie, after all.

anthonygreen93 Lars Von Trier's film, The Boss of It All (2006), is a successfully executed black comedy. The plot of the film revolves around an unemployed actor, Kristoffer, brilliantly played by Jens Albinus. The owner of an IT company, Ravn (Peter Gantzler), has told his employers of a fictitious character who is the 'boss of it all' in order to divert any unpopular decisions made by him. When a potential buyer of his company wants to meet the owner of the company in person, Ravn subsequently hires Kristoffer to act as the boss of Ravn's company. Kristoffer attempts to take on the 'boss of it all' persona in a serious manner, yet he is exposed to the audience as clueless and at times, idiotic. This provides much of the humour throughout the film where Kristoffer is so drawn in by the character, that he and 'the boss of it all' have become one and the same. As the story unfolds, the lies build and gather, one after the other, delving Kristoffer deeper and deeper into the continuous lies put forward by Ravn.Writer-director, Von Trier, makes use of terrific dialogue through his actors. The whole cast gel together well and the way Albinus seamlessly becomes more drawn in by the charade makes for great entertainment. This film demonstrates a great example of how black comedy should be produced. The Coen Brothers surely must have taken some inspiration from Von Trier for their black comedy, Burn After Reading. Both films illustrate how something so stupid and unnecessary, snowballing into something taken seriously, can create such great humour. The dull visuals and chopped up cutting, effectively enhanced the mood of the film, creating a greater sense of reality and allowing the film to not be taken so seriously. The Boss of It All is genuinely hilarious, efficiently shot and well put together black-comedic film.

Agnelin "Direktøren for det hele" is one fun ride, in general. Almost as enjoyable as the plot and the surreal situations that the premise generates is Von Trier's style -or lack thereof- in shooting the movie: bad framing, frequent cuts, characters that sometimes virtually disappear from the scene, irregular sound, no soundtrack... It could be argued -and would probably be a very valid point- that what is considered "style" and "personality" in Von Trier would be a series of very serious film-making mistakes, but, at any rate, the effect is refreshing.Now as to the plot. Ravn, the owner of an IT company wants to sell it, but he's been hiding his identity all the time, pretending to be an employee; in acting that way, he's earned the trust and friendship of his co-workers -actually, his employees-, especially of the six creative minds of the company, which make up a very varied and funny mosaic of personalities. He's trying to sell the company to an irate Icelandic businessman, but he doesn't want to come out as the big boss, so he hires a friend actor, Kristoffer, to pass himself off as the boss. Many surreal and confusing situations will ensue; and also situations that will put Ravn's and Kristoffer's moral standards to the test.I enjoyed this movie, but I have to add that it doesn't work as a comedy -this is something else, perhaps a farce, or a Trieresque view of a comedy, but it certainly didn't provoke the usual reactions that a comedy does; maybe it was labelled as "comedy" because it needed a label, but I don't think it's the right one for this. I recommend watching it with an open mind -if you do so, you'll probably enjoy it as much as I did.

postmanwhoalwaysringstwice "The Boss of it All" is a comedy film by Danish director Lars von Trier. As expected by the name Lars von Trier, the film is a far cry from a standard comedy film. This is hardly a date movie, and it certainly doesn't kowtow to a teenager's sensibilities. In fact, for all intents and purposes "The Boss of it All" is less a comedy and more an examination of the comedic form.Lars von Trier is well-known for his pitch black dramas that frequently investigate the form and function of the drama occurring. The operatic tragedy "Dancer in the Dark" would be an example. With "The Boss of it All", he's got somewhat of a farce on his hands. He opens the film with the self-consciousness of a film parody, and continues to interrupt in a similar fashion throughout. The story, as it is, follows an out of work actor into a real world setting where he is hired to play the role of the president of a company no one has ever seen. From there he's left to fend for himself with a variety of improvisation skills and knee-jerk reaction.This is a challenging film from the get-go. It's art-house to a fault. The camera framing and editing style are deliberately off-putting and inconsistent, the actors frequently act as though their lines have yet to arrive, and the story is actually of little consequence. What Lars von Trier has assembled seems to be a statement on a business without a head honcho, or more specifically what a film might look like without a director. This is very tricky, well-orchestrated insanity.