NOI THE ALBINO

NOI THE ALBINO is a droll tale from Iceland about a bright but lazy and apathetic teenager who wanders around his small Icelandic hometown dreaming of escaping to Hawaii. Noi meets a pretty teenage girl, Iris, who’s just moved there from the big city and works at her father’s gas station and cafe. While he tries to convince Iris to escape with him, Noi’s drunken father tries to reestablish contact with his son so that Noi does not make the same mistakes he did. A tragedy leads to an anticlimactic ending.

NOI THE ALBINO is often captivating and sometimes funny, but its lack of a proper dramatic ending fails to tie anything together for the viewer. At one important point, a Christian priest tries to comfort Noi with an offer of prayer, but nothing, not even sudden tragedy, can snap this boy out of himself. Apparently, at the end of the story, the boy is only left with his silly dreams of Hawaii to comfort him. Thus, the point of this Icelandic fable probably will be lost on the average moviegoer, even many of those who may be intrigued by such an exotic cinematic experience. Noi’s hometown, including the school he must attend, is clearly an icy prison for him, as well as his family, but so what? That isn’t a significant enough metaphor around which to craft a feature-length movie.