Author Jonas Jonasson's delightful novel about a centenarian who leads an unlikely but incredible life, is a little too detailed to translate completely successfully to screen. Yet the Swedish comedy, The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared, has enough to amuse and amaze, and hopefully make you want to read the novel.
After an incident involving dynamite, a fox and a dead cat, Allan Karlsson (played by famous Swedish comedian Robert Gustafsson) is sent to a nursing home. But as the home prepares to celebrate his 100th birthday, he climbs out of his bedroom window, and heads off on an epic adventure that involves a suitcase containing millions of krona, murderous gang members, and an elephant called Sonja.
This isn't the first time Allan's life has taken a turn for the extraordinary. Told through a series of flashbacks, we learn what effect he and his love of blowing things up had on the second world war, cold war … in fact, much of the 20th-century.
The premise is ridiculous, but Allan's placid retelling of his past is irresistible. It's just a shame the film had to cut some of the stories that made the book so hilarious.
Contains strong language