Growing up is never easy, but I guess it’s especially hard when you live in Lapland. Elvira has a lot on her plate for a 15-year-old – a mother who just did a coming out (not a popular thing to do at the end of the world), a classmate whom the local community idolizes because she’s an influencer, a Marxist friend, and on top of that she’s just learned that her father isn’t Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, but a post-conviction drunk. Not even the mind map she meticulously creates in an abandoned basement can comprehend this.
Egil Pedersen’s film, based on a screenplay by himself, is an extremely interesting coming-of-age story. It really resounds with many threads that influence each other. This confusion and entanglement are directly connected to what Elvira experiences. The viewer, like her, feels overwhelmed by more and more new issues that surface and do not allow you to sleep peacefully. The problem with sleep is all the greater because daylight reigns around the clock.
Elvira has been convinced all her 15 years of life that she was conceived in an IVF clinic in Denmark, and that her father could be Nikolaj Coster-Waldau. For her, this is even a conviction bordering on certainty – she started learning Danish, hanging Danish flags everywhere and dressing in clothes from Danish brands. Her biggest dream was to leave Lapland and get away from the Saam people, who for her were synonymous with failure. One day, however, it turns out that her father is not at all Danish and a Game of Thrones actor, but an ordinary Sami man, with problems with the law and alcohol on top of that.
Very moving is the mother’s helplessness and all the smoldering emotions inside her, as well as the choices she makes. On the one hand she is focused on her partner, who is just moving in with them, on the other she is chased by her past and the father of her child, a situation she has absolutely no control over, and on the third hand she would like to do something for herself because of which she gets into gigantic debts. She is even more confused than her daughter, who on top of that must deal with a friend who wants to build her online community on Elvira’s mom’s relationship.
The film deals with the very important issue of a sense of identity. It is mentioned by all cases and at every step it is emphasized how important it is. Elvira strenuously and clinging to every scrap of information about who she is. She gradually moves through her fascination with Denmark to wanting to be a “real Laplander” with traditional dress. The lesson we should take from this is not to deceive our children and withhold information from them about who they are, because sooner or later such truth will come out. After all, in the current world full of tests for absolutely everything, it is very easy to get genetic tests, for example. When the child finally finds out about his background, he may really resent us for lying, and then the road to reconciliation can be bumpy.
Kinga Majchrzak