A Man Called Ove (film)

Ove Lindahl, a 59-year-old widower, lives in a townhouse neighborhood where he was the chairman of the neighborhood association until Rune, his former friend, replaced him. Rune is now paralysed after having a stroke, and is being cared for by his wife, Anita. Ove is depressed, and has been ever since his wife, Sonja, a schoolteacher, died from cancer six months earlier. Having worked at the same company for 43 years, he is pushed into retiring. His attempts to hang himself are repeatedly interrupted by Iranian immigrant Parvaneh, her Swedish husband Patrick, and their two children, who are moving into the house across the street.

During one of these suicide attempts, Ove has a flashback to his childhood. His mother died when he was a child, leaving him alone with his quiet father, a mechanic at the train company. His father shared his knowledge of engines with Ove, who had a part-time job at the train yard. Having done particularly well at his exams, he reports his results to his father, who is so eager to spread the news that he fails to take proper care and is hit by a train and killed.

Back in the present, during another attempt to kill himself, this time by carbon monoxide poisoning, Ove is sitting in his running car and again recollects an experience he had the past, when he had just begun working at the train company. In that flashback, two men from the local council, whom Ove dubs "the Whiteshirts," arrive at young Ove's home and declare that it should be demolished. Ove instead fixes the house. Then, one night, his neighbor's house catches fire: Ove comes to the rescue and saves two people, but sparks from the flames cause his own house to catch fire, and the Whiteshirts prevent that fire from being tackled because they had planned to demolish it anyway.

Now homeless as a result, and with nowhere else to go, Ove sleeps on a train at work; he wakes to find a young woman, Sonja, sitting across from him. He is smitten with her and returns to the same early train each morning hoping she’ll turn up again. After three weeks, she does, and they begin dating. She encourages him to return to school, and he earns a degree in engineering.

Back in the present again, Ove's attempt to kill himself is interrupted by Parvaneh, who bangs on his garage door, saying she needs a lift to the hospital because her husband has had an accident. Ove complies, and then takes care of Parvaneh and Patrick's two daughters, Sepideh and Nasanin, until he causes a scene and is made to sit outside. Later, Ove goes to the train station, planning to jump in front of a train. However, when he gets there, another man on the platform faints and falls onto the tracks, whereupon Ove jumps down and rescues him.

Parvaneh asks Ove to teach her how to drive, and he eventually agrees. He also takes in a stray cat which he had previously found to be merely an annoyance. He tells Parvaneh about his past friendship with Rune, and how they had worked together to establish rules and order, with Ove as chairman of the neighborhood association board and Rune as the deputy chair. They had grown apart over the years because Rune preferred Volvo cars and Ove Saabs, and partly as a result, Rune had organized a "coup" and had replaced Ove as chairman. At this time, Ove also begins to bond with his new cat. He repairs a bike he confiscated from a neighborhood teen, Adrian, and returns it to Adrian, who works at a kebab shop with another youth called Mirsad. Ove notices Mirsad's eye makeup and wonders if he is "one of those gays," but does not shun him.

Despite his improved relations with his neighbors, Ove has an altercation with two "Whiteshirts" who are attempting to force Rune to move into a nursing home. Ove then attempts suicide, intending to use a shotgun, but is again interrupted, this time by Adrian and Mirsad ringing his doorbell. Adrian tells Ove that Mirsad has been kicked out of his house after coming out as gay to his family, and needs a place to stay. Ove reluctantly invites Mirsad in.

Later, Ove tells Parvaneh about a time when Sonja was pregnant and had wanted to go on vacation before the baby arrived. She and Ove traveled on a tour bus to Spain, but on the journey home, the bus crashed. In the crash, Sonja suffered a miscarriage, and other injuries that forced her to become reliant on a wheelchair: this made her unable to take a job as a teacher. When the local authorities ignored Ove's pleas to build a wheelchair ramp, he went to the school at night and built one.

Back in the present again, Ove collapses, and is taken to the hospital, where he lists Parvaneh as his next of kin. Parvaneh is told that her "father" has an enlarged heart, but will survive. Laughing, she tells Ove he is terrible at dying, then goes into labor and gives birth to a boy. Ove then presents gifts to Parvaneh's daughters, who refer to him as grandpa.

Several months later, Parvaneh wakes to a winter storm and notices that the ever-punctual Ove has not cleared his pathway. She and Patrick run to Ove's house to find he has died with the cat lying beside him. Ove, now finally having found peace, has left strict instructions for a modest funeral, but the service is packed with neighbors. The film ends with Ove waking up in the afterlife, where he walks onto a train and finds Sonja there, waiting for him to join her.

A remake was produced in the United States by Tom Hanks, who stars in the film.[26] In January 2022, it was announced that the film, titled A Man Called Otto, would be directed by Marc Forster, with David Magee writing the screenplay. Filming began in February 2022 in Pittsburgh with Mariana Treviño, Rachel Keller and Manuel Garcia-Rulfo co-starring alongside Hanks.[27][28] In February 2022, Sony Pictures acquired worldwide distribution rights to the film for $60 million, the highest ever paid for a film at the European Film Market, and set it for a Christmas 2022 release.[29]

• List of submissions to the 89th Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film
• List of Swedish submissions for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film

• A Man Called Ove at IMDb 
• A Man Called Ove at the Swedish Film Institute Database
• A Man Called Ove at AllMovie
• A Man Called Ove at Metacritic
• A Man Called Ove at Rotten Tomatoes
• Official trailer on YouTube
• Master Class - A Man Called Otto w/ Tom Hanks, Rolf Lassgård, Rita Wilson, 2023 SF Studios video