Okay. It’s a bit non-committal as a word. It is not exactly a superlative. The Danish film of the same name can also be pegged in a similar way. It is pretty bog standard family soap opera stuff. Nete is the busybody mother character who has a husband toying with straying, a teenage daughter and a gay brother. Tiny family issues are put under the microscope when her grumpy old Dad gets leukemia and Nete decides to let him stay for the three weeks he apparently has left to live. Except three weeks turn into months and….
We have all been here before, and yet Okay manages to get by on its pretty hackneyed script by spending just that little bit more time on characterization. The old git is addicted to junk TV, the husband is a great cook (indeed the whole film seems hung up on the idea that women cannot cook). The thing that works the most in the film, even when there is a surfeit of sappy music and sentiment, is Nete herself – as played by Paprika Steen. Even when she is at her most agitated, when she is breaking down and shouting at all around her, she remains a solidly likeable presence. Someone losing her beauty as her daughter is gaining hers, and her husband is looking for it elsewhere. Steen is more than the heart of this movie, she is the only bit that really works – but she works so damn well you forgive the kitchen sink dramas common lapses into cliche. Especially the kitchen sink scenes, Nete is right – they really need to get a dishwasher.