The Square

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I maybe just wasn't in the right mood for this, but after about half an hour I really didn't much care what happened to "Christian" (Claes Bang), or pretty much anyone else. He runs one of those galleries that puts a glass of water on a dusty shelf and calls it art. You know, emperor's new clothes kind of stuff. His latest "exhibition" is designed to remind the public of their responsibilities to each other but his focus is diverted when he is the victim of a pickpocket. No phone. No wallet. He devises an unique way to get them back by putting a note through all of his neighbours' letter boxes delivering an accusatory ultimatum. Curiously enough, that's not the only stupid idea he has as this rather plodding drama meanders it's way from one bad decision to another for 2½ hours. It reaches it's most bizarrely surreal when the entertainment - "Oleg" (Terry Notary) - at a very fancy fund-raising dinner goes quite spectacularly wrong, but there are plenty other daft scenarios as he tries to sort out a marketing campaign, manage a curiously sterile relationship with "Anne" (a dreadfully wooden Elizabeth Moss) and deal with an increasingly exasperating kid (Elijandro Edouard) who seems to think his own family think he nicked the stuff! To be fair to Bang, he does manage to imbue quite a decent degree of insufferable arrogance as his pompous character finds all of his comfort blankets taken away and himself exposed to a society that couldn't care less, indeed is even openly critical, of his obvious double standards. I did like the premiss, but auteur Ruben Östlund indulges himself too completely for me, and I was frankly bored by the end. Maybe a tightening edit could help refocus the humour and the moral of the story? Sorry - not for me.