The Middle Man (2021)

(On Cable TV, November 2022) The line between a black comedy and an unbearably glum drama is not always obvious, and that’s where The Middle Man comes it. Executed in Ontario but conceived by Norwegian writer-director Bent Hamer, the film feels like a glimpse at a parallel universe where laughter is unknown, depression is the norm, and people act according to half-robotic behavioural patterns. It’s as if a complete stranger with a shaky grasp of English set out to write a story about a Rust Belt city without quite understanding that there’s more to life than news headlines about industrial decay and rising suicide rates. No, I’m not a big fan of The Middle Man: While you can occasionally recognize attempts at very tight-lipped mirth, much of the story (about a man hired to communicate bad news to a declining Midwestern community) is at such low intensity that it’s a surprise that characters aren’t falling asleep in mid-scene. There are probably symbolic links here that I’m not seeing… but then again, I’m not really interested in digging deeper: seeing that film once was more than enough.