“Well, it’s Armand again.”
Jarle, the principal, sighs. One more problem in a day full of them. The Norwegian school is as hot as a Brazilian greenhouse. The fire alarm is broken—screaming emergency at nothing. And now, Armand.
Elizabeth breezes into the school, heels clicking down the hall—actress, celebrity, mother. She was asked to come via text with a smiley face.
“It’s nothing serious,” Sunna, Armand’s teacher, reassures her. But when Elizabeth asks what “it” is, Sunna won’t say. Best wait for the other parents.
Soon, Sarah and Anders—the other parents—walk in, their eyes cast down, their jaws clenched. Elizabeth knows them well. Painfully well. And as they take a seat, the allegations begin to drip out, as if from a leaky faucet.
There was an incident in the bathroom. Jon was crying. He had a scratch on his face. And he said that Armand did it.
No, that’s not serious, Elizabeth thinks. Boys will be boys, 6-year-old boys especially. And—
There was an incident in the bathroom. Armand hit Jon and made him look at his most private spots.
A misunderstanding, surely. Or Jon is lying. Armand would never—
There was an incident in the bathroom. Jon’s pants were off. He was bruised. And—according to Jon’s mother—Jon said that Armand sodomized him.
And slowly, the allegations shift from boy to mother. Elizabeth’s an actress, and we know what actresses are like. The boy’s father, Thomas, recently died in a car crash—a tragic accident. Or was it an accident at all? Armand’s been in trouble before. Might that mean trouble at home?
Drip. Drip. Drip. Each new allegation swells the concern and alarm like a sponge. Nothing serious, Sunna had said. But the allegations are serious indeed.
And yet, they are, still, allegations—allegations of a 6-year-old, interpreted by adults with motives of their own.
The school’s heat rises. The fire alarm blares. And Armand—the little boy at the center of it all—sits at home, his opinions unasked for, his story unheard.
The adults in Armand’s life face a difficult situation: determining what really happened inside that bathroom. In a best-case scenario, it might be a case of playing doctor, or childhood curiosity gone too far; hardly the stuff requiring the police and state social workers. In the worst case, the state can’t step in quickly enough to get the 6-year-old the help he needs … and potentially pull him away from his mother.
Sunna, Jarle and vice principal Ajsa all seem to be trying, quite hard, to do the right thing. But being human, what’s right is shaped not only shaped by what they know, but what they feel.
Jarle still remembers teaching Armand’s father in that very same school, oh so many years ago. Jarle still grieves his death, and he grows increasingly suspicious of Elizabeth. Sunna encourages her colleagues to not rush to judgment. But might she be also a little starstruck by Elizabeth, the glamorous actress? The actions of our characters here are often quite flawed. But, perhaps, we can at least acknowledge the good intentions of most.
And while the truth of what happened remains elusive, one character is instrumental in dispelling some lies surrounding the incident.
None.
Sarah works hard to link a fact (that Elizabeth’s an actress) with an allegation (that Elizabeth’s a bad mother). Several comments come freighted with an undercurrent of, “Well, she’s an actress, and you know what they’re like.” Jon and Armond apparently once spent a lot of afternoons after school together (Elizabeth was married to Sarah’s brother), and Jon would allegedly come home and tell Sarah that Elizabeth would “walk around naked and hug him all the time.”
Elizabeth gets very angry about that allegation. But the movie does emphasize Elizabeth’s sexuality, and it suggests that the actress may indeed use it to manipulate those around her.
Shortly after Elizabeth enters the school, she opens her raincoat to reveal her outfit for the day—an unbuttoned shirt lightly draped over a lacy, camisole-like top. As the afternoon wears on, she stands on a desk to better feel the air from a ceiling vent; when she notices Anders (Sarah’s husband) staring at her, she invites him to join her. He does. He seems fixated on an exposed bra strap, and their hands nearly touch. But when Elizabeth turns toward him—an invitation, perhaps—Anders moves away. Still later, Elizabeth takes Anders more deeply into her confidence, and their conversation comes with all the hallmarks of deeper intimacy, perhaps suggesting a mutual attraction or a one-time affair.
Sarah overhears this conversation. And when she has her own quiet talk with Anders, she accuses him of being obsessed with Elizabeth. And then she asks if her accusations turn him on.
Someone alleges that before this incident, Armand “played doctor” with other children and exposed himself to several classmates. We hear several people reference sexual anatomy, anal cavities and the act of sodomy. Someone pantomimes a sexual act with his hands.
In one of the movie’s more imaginative scenes, Elizabeth finds herself in a sensual, violent dance with several other parents or school staff. At first, the contact feels erotic; hands (mostly female) stroke Elizabeth’s face and run down her shoulders, and Elizabeth joins in—running her hands over her own body and touching the people around her. Elizabeth and a female dancer or two nearly kiss at times. And while an element of that eroticism remains throughout the dance scene, it soon morphs into …
… a more violent act, where the dancers pull Elizabeth’s hair, pull her by her arms and, at one point, nearly envelop her with their own bodies.
Another dance scene—this one featuring Elizabeth alone—depicts that same mix of sensuality and violence, though the violence is more prominent here. She pulls her own hair and seems to pantomime someone hitting her. (She’s eventually rescued from this violent solo reverie by a dancing janitor.)
Elizabeth alleges that her husband, Thomas, used to beat her, and she worries that Armand saw one of these beatings. Meanwhile, Sarah believes that Thomas’ death—in a tragic car crash—was actually a suicide, and she suggests that Armand could meet the same tragic fate unless the state steps in and removes him from his mother. “We can’t let Armand suffer the same fate as my brother,” she says.
One character slaps someone else in the face a couple of times. Elizabeth slaps a would-be comforting hand away from her shoulder. Someone throws a chair in anger.
[Spoiler Warning] As members of the school faculty try to determine whether Jon was the victim of sexual assault, there’s little question he was the subject of a physical one. Armand did apparently hit Jon, at the very least. But the bruises that Jon had on his body weren’t the result of Armand, we learn: Those bruises came earlier, and it’s suggested that Armand’s own mother might’ve caused them.
This Norwegian film’s subtitles include five f-words and a handful of other profanities, including “a–” and “d–n.” God’s name is misused three times, twice with the word “d–n.”
We hear that Thomas’ fatal car accident was the result of drunk driving—though Sarah is doubtful. “He never drank,” she insists.
Even as the school’s faculty tries to figure out the next steps, Jarle is also hyper-aware of how this might impact the school itself. He cautions Sunna to tread carefully: Elizabeth, after all, is a public figure, and it wouldn’t do to antagonize her. But as the day wears on, others press upon him what this scandal might mean for the school—especially if he didn’t respond to these allegations with a certain level of righteous zeal.
And while the incident was supposed to be kept quiet, a participant confides in a colleague. Soon, plenty of other people know, and all of them have plenty of thoughts on the veracity of the allegations and how the school should respond. “These are speculations!” Sunna tries to remind everyone. But the allegations, perhaps because of how serious they are and because of the “circumstantial evidence” around Armand’s previous behavioral issues, are taken by many as fact.
Eventually, we also learn that someone is using the incident to further a personal vendetta.
At the top of the review, we mentioned the broken fire alarm—an alarm that serves as a metaphor for the film itself. “Fire” it shouts, even though there’s not a flame in sight. It’s fitting, perhaps, that the movie’s finale ends in a torrent of fire-dousing rain.
I’m not sure the movie’s core issue can be so quickly and neatly washed away. But Armand is a reminder how tawdry allegations, founded or not, can take on a life of their own. How it’s so easy for judgment to race ahead of the facts. How even facts themselves can be co-opted and twisted to serve hidden agendas.
Meanwhile, Plugged In’s own agenda regarding Armand is on the table for all to see.
This Norwegian film is designed as an awards-bait acting showcase for its star, Renate Reinsve (Elizabeth). And indeed, it does frame Reinsve’s impressive performance range, allowing her to be vulnerable, sultry, duplicitous, confused and manic—sometimes within the space of five minutes. Sometimes within five breaths. And the fact that she’s an actress playing an actress adds another curious wrinkle.
“It’s more or less her job to make her life interesting,” Sarah sniffs. “To do anything to attract attention.”
Armand, the movie, also does what it can to attract our attention. Its premise is a tawdry, disturbing incident between two people barely old enough to tie their own shoes. It mirrors Elizabeth’s own sometimes sultry, sometimes brittle persona—beckoning you closer with a narrative wink, then letting its content issues slap you in the face. Its language gives the film its R rating, and its strange departures into dance might leave you simultaneously blushing and scratching your head.
While Sunna reminds Elizabeth’s accusers to be wary of speculation, those content issues—the language, the erotic vibe, the squirm-worthy plot—are facts. And for those concerned with exposing themselves to unwanted and perhaps unwarranted content, that’s a sign of fire.
Paul Asay has been part of the Plugged In staff since 2007, watching and reviewing roughly 15 quintillion movies and television shows. He’s written for a number of other publications, too, including Time, The Washington Post and Christianity Today. The author of several books, Paul loves to find spirituality in unexpected places, including popular entertainment, and he loves all things superhero. His vices include James Bond films, Mountain Dew and terrible B-grade movies. He’s married, has two children and a neurotic dog, runs marathons on occasion and hopes to someday own his own tuxedo. Feel free to follow him on Twitter @AsayPaul.
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