Review: Under the Tree

Under the Tree, an Icelandic satire about warring neighbours who choose to escalate petty squabbles to outlandish, disgusting degrees, is truly a film made for the moment. Both a unique look at the banality of evil and the downside of living in a world that has grown increasingly passive-aggressive, the latest film from director and co-writer Hafsteinn Gunnar Sigurðsson (Either Way, Paris of the North) takes modern society’s propensity for selfishness and entitlement to morally outlandish heights. Under the Tree is the kind of low-key slice of life comedy-drama that uses realistic storytelling sensibilities, motivations, and emotions to tell a tale that the viewer both refuses to believe could ever happen, and yet, given the current state of the world, would make perfect, cynical sense if it did.

Retirees Baldvin (Sigurður Sigurjónsson) and Inga (Edda Björgvinsdóttir) are still reeling from the loss of their eldest son, Uggi, who went missing and presumably killed himself, something the grieving mother refuses to believe. Their younger son, Atli (Steinþór Hróar Steinþórsson), has moved home for a spell, after being kicked out by his wife (Lára Jóhanna Jónsdóttir) for perceived infidelity. Baldvin and Inga are currently in a spat with their neighbours: Konrad (Þorsteinn Bachmann) and his considerably younger wife, Eybjorg (Selma Björnsdóttir). A tree on Baldvin and Inga’s property casts a large shadow onto the patio where Eybjorg likes to sunbathe, prompting Konrad to repeatedly ask that the branches be cut or trimmed in some way. Baldvin flat out ignores Konrad’s repeated requests, while Inga grows irate and antagonistic, blaming everything squarely on Eybjorg’s selfishness. As Inga’s antagonism grows and the couple next door decide to stop being as polite as they had been, the neighbours begin a series of escalating threats and stunts that will grow nasty and out of hand without solving any of their problems.

A story about neighbours constantly pranking and prodding each other isn’t anything new, but Sigurðsson and co-writer Huldar Breiðfjörð make sure to pack Under the Tree’s seemingly innocuous plotline with a lot of interesting thematic material. While the duelling plotline of Atli struggling to maintain custody of his daughter amid a crumbling romance doesn’t add much more than a few well acted and directed sequences of purposefully uncomfortable domestic struggle, the core rivalry between the bickering neighbours has been loaded with plenty to say about status, entitlement, and maternal issues that will play heavily into the characters’ increasingly twisted dynamic. It’s a film about jealousy played out among characters who will pridefully never admit to being envious. We never need to have such sentiments verbalized because it can be seen plain as day on all their faces. Each couple has something the other couple desires, and the neighbours that have the seemingly easy task of trimming a tree are so irreparably broken that asking them to do anything comes across as an affront to their already tenuous lives.

It starts out with words, mostly Inga carrying out seemingly unprovoked verbal attacks on Eybjorg. Then it escalates to flattened tires, torn up planters, the installation of security cameras, disappearing pets, and finally to points of no return for either couple. As the aggression continues to mount, Under the Tree stops character development dead in its tracks, preferring to show how far these characters will go to preserve their ways of life. While that’s somewhat disappointing, it does provide ample room for thoughtful viewers to look deeper into the material for underlying causes of this suburban malaise, shedding light on some truly incredible performances throughout.

Bachmann and Sigurjónsson have been purposely given interchangeable, arguably bland characters by design. They’re more on hand to carry out or ignore the wishes of their spouses, proving to be more ineffective and destructive by their lack of investment in the easily solved problems at hand. Björnsdóttir has a bit more to do as a woman who’s demanding, but far from the demon that Inga paints her out to be. And even though the somewhat misguided (and borderline sexist) subplot involving Atli’s marital woes never fully gels into something substantial, Steinþórsson provides a perfect deadpan counterpoint to his parents’ squabbling when called upon to interject into the main story.

But Under the Tree belongs almost wholly to Björgvinsdóttir, who turns Inga into someone that’s equally abhorrent and sympathetic. Sigurðsson is careful to explain how and why Inga has grown to “loathe thy neighbour,” and the reasons are tragic, subtle, and believable. By that same token, Inga’s actions and intentions are the most consistently irredeemable. While Konrad has asked for the tree to get trimmed to appease his wife, it’s Inga who blows things out of proportion. Björgvinsdóttir showcases Inga’s rage and inability to move on through a perpetual sneer and cut eye, but always allows for softer touches that speak to fleeting moments of clarity. Björgvinsdóttir gently and subtly shows that beneath an increasingly monstrous exterior lies a good person who has horrifically lost their way. It’s an emotionally draining performance to behold, and one that anchors some of the film’s more outlandish developments. It’s a character that – in the wrong hands – could have been seen as a sexist caricature, but instead has more depth than the more likable characters around her.

As a director, Sigurðsson has an eye for fine detail, but not to a point where the film becomes flashier or more stylized than the storyline can handle. Every widescreen framed image offers some splendid visuals and bits of production design, like the increasingly growing patch of peeling paint outside Balvin’s front door or the shadow cast by the titular tree serving as a metaphor for a grief that’s infecting more than the family that should be dealing with it. Considering that Under the Tree surrounds characters that refuse to take responsibility over their emotions and actions, it’s up to Sigurðsson to fill in a lot of the blanks via visuals, something that the director deftly accomplishes.

Under the Tree doesn’t get truly grotesque and dark until the final twenty minutes or so, but while the film should be ramping up in intensity, it’s here that Sigurðsson stumbles. The final end game of Under the Tree is set up gradually throughout, leading to a dark punchline that can be seen coming from around the halfway point. This ending in no way betrays the set-up, but it’s also a bit disappointing when a story this clever and perceptive leads exactly where one expects it to end up. The ending should be as shocking and slyly comedic as the rest of the film, but instead it feels like a film that has slowed down instead of sped up. It’s appropriately confrontational, but also curiously inert.

Storytelling mechanics aside, Under the Tree remains a wonderful overall look at the insidious nature of passive-aggressive in-fighting. Every problem faced by these neighbours could have been solved over a lengthy discussion or through a mediator. Instead, it blows up into a situation that will get worse for everyone involved before it gets better. It’s a pretty great reflection on the current state of world affairs and our current propensity to resort to snark and revenge when we feel aggrieved or slighted. It’s not a perfect film, but Under the Tree is still a solid treatise on the nature of temper in the modern age, one where people talk at each other instead of to one another.

Under the Tree opens at Canada Square in Toronto on Friday, July 20, 2018. It expands to additional cities throughout the summer.

Check out the trailer for Under the Tree: