A culture-clash comedy that tries too hard to please the back rows, this overstuffed adaptation of a popular Swedish novel boasts a memorable lead job from Rolf Lassgård as a grumpy old man who looks back on his better years with the help of colourful flashbacks, while finding different ways to kill himself in the chilly present, and failing.

For one thing, the rowdy, mixed-ethnicity family who just moved in next door keeps interrupting him. Compared with some of the other Scando comedies that have come our way recently, Ove hits one darkly farcical note too insistently, and the parade of disasters is more predictable than funny or heartwarming. The running rivalry between Saab and Volvo provides an amusing background theme, however.