The most odd Norwegian movies nearly always turn out to be the best. It's the ones that aim to become international smash hits that fall flat on their pompous faces.
2000
Director: Pål Jackman
Script: Erlend Loe
Main cast: Mads Ousdal, Ingjerd Egeberg, Harald Eia, Hildegun Riise
28 year old Daniel is a therapist living with his slightly passive-aggressive mother. His father, it appears, died in a flood in China before Daniel was born, saving a little girl and earning him a thank you-letter from Mao still hanging on their wall. Daniel and his best friend Ronny hang out using their metal detectors, looking for scrap metal, and one day they find a silver necklace with a heart-shaped pendant and the name "Janne" engraved. Ronny, who runs his own radio station ("Radio illegal"), announces the find on the air, and the owner shows up in Daniel's office to collect it. This, of course, is the beginning of a beautiful, but complicated romance.
Detector is just charming and weird enough to make you bear with its not too substantial script, not all-too-subtle metaphors and some truly odd characters (one of them, Ante, is played by the same actor who used to play Ante in the legendary Norwegian tv series for children about a young Sami boy - now he's a horny private investigator with a penchant for rather unlikely conspiracy theories). Also, the performances are really good - Hildegun Riise always ends up playing the mother, but she does it brilliantly. Comedian Harald Eia is much the same as in the cult tv series he has been part of, and gets away with it really well.
Erlend Loe has been one of the most popular Norwegian writers since the mid-90s, stopping by most genres, but originally educated as a scriptwriter. I consider this movie script to be one of his better works in latter years - not brilliant, but quite endearing.