Cubussoli Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Micitype Pretty Good

Kaydan Christian A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Marva It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

paloma54 This movie seemed to be a sure winner based on reviews, yet my husband and I were shocked at the terrible acting by Michael Nyquist, the overblown behavior as well as superficiality of all the characters, the presence of everyone's (sadly, it would seem) favorite paper tiger faux-Christian pastor stereotype, and an aimless wandering plot, not to mention the completely unrealistic cop-out ending.There are endless long shots of Daniel (Nyquist) simply staring, without any clue as to what he is thinking or feeling, and there is precious little spoken dialogue, even when he is accused irrationally and unjustly by town gossips. Is this some sort of pathetic attempt to equate him to the Christ who offers no defense in the court of Pontius Pilate? Are we supposed to think he is autistic? Why the heck doesn't he respond? It comes across as wholly unrealistic.As a committed Christian, I find the constant view of Christians as narrow-minded, sexually repressed hypocrites downright offensive as well as unrealistic. PLEASE people. Sex just happens to be God's idea, not ours! And yes indeed I know a few hypocrites who are Christians, but I also know a whole lot of non-Christian hypocrites as well. Hypocrisy, as well as every other moral failure, is to be found in the human race as a whole. And any serious Christian would surely know how severely Jesus judged the hypocrites of his day. At the least, the cardboard caricature of the priest was simply a crashing bore, reducing the plot lines to a childishly simple narrative of black and white without any coloration.The musical aspect of this film was the biggest disappointment to me. Having an extensive classical music background myself, heavily weighted with choral singing experience, I found the musical examples, and the behavior of all the choir folks, and Daniel in particular, to be cheesy, atypical, and as if musical ignoramuses had made this movie.Epic failure.

Sarah Kemp As it is in Heaven (Så som i himmelen) tells the story of Daniel Dareus, a world-famous composer who is forced to retire due to his failing heart. He returns to the village where he grew up, intending to lead a quiet life. However, a position as the choir director at the local church throws him into the midst of every personal problem the various choir members have. He teaches them to find their own voice within the music, freeing each person from their vices and woes. While it is meant to be a touching look at the power of music, the film transcends sentimentality to reach melodrama, losing the message in the process.Daniel (portrayed by Michael Nyqyist of Millennium Trilogy fame) is a high-powered conductor, demanding and talented. He screams at his performers until they meet his expectations. His standards prove to be his downfall though, as he suffers a heart attack, forcing early retirement. He reminds me of a more refined version of the classic man-child trope—his childhood was absorbed by music, so he is finally able to look into pursuits such as swimming and biking. His looks of delight are genuine, but also just goofy. Daniel takes over as cantor of the local church choir and begins to train them into his ways. My liking of the film began to break down as early as this point; I found it hard to believe that a director with such high standards would so quickly be patient with the untrained villagers.His road to success is impeded by several major blockades. First, each member of his choir has something holding him or her back. Lena, the attractive young blond, has trust issues due to a previous relationship. Arne is overbearing and obnoxious, willing to do anything to get the group together. Gabriella has a beautiful voice, but is stifled by her abusive husband. For each of these people, the choir is a place where they can begin to work past their problems and begin to heal. Gabriella is the most affected; she finally finds the courage to leave her husband and escape from the constant abuse. The other choir members take her in and protect her from the husband's raging. While it is nice to see each member working toward something, it is also clear that each character is an extreme version of something, almost to the point of being a parody. Also pushing the choir together is the resistance of the church towards their improvement and popularity, a plot point that I find troubling. The general goal of religion is to spread and influence more and more members to come into the fold, seeking salvation. The church as depicted here is strict and exclusive. It seems that only people who meet a certain set of standards are allowed to even step through the doors. The pastor and Siv, an incredibly religious woman, become determined to excise Daniel from his position as cantor, because he is actually doing some good for the people of the town. Most churches are welcoming to seekers; they are just hurting themselves at this point. This contributes heavily to the overwhelming feeling of melodrama. The various reactions to the problems caused by the church and among the choir members are entirely over the top. The pastor ends up having a nervous breakdown, precipitated by his wife leaving him after he refuses to reinstate Daniel. She won't even talk to him and even appears to be catatonic. Of course, all of these problems are headed toward resolution when the choir chooses to disassociate from the church and follow Daniel. Why? The healing power of music. There were far too many instances throughout the film of an argument being immediately followed by a group song. In a way, it began to remind me of Glee, where everything problem is solved by singing it out. And ultimately, a significant event at the end of the film seems to suggest that many of the initial problems will go unsolved. There is clearly meant to be a message here about music, the emotions it evokes, and the power of a group of people. However, it is buried beneath layers and layers of cheesiness and extreme versions of characters. The film isn't absolutely terrible, but I definitely don't agree with the reviewers who really loved it. It had potential, but failed due to getting bogged down in the details. I give it 5 out of 10 stars.

Cinemucho It is almost impossible to believe that Kay Pollack's As It Is in Heaven was made only ten years ago in 2004 for it feels dreadfully more dated than that. This Academy Award nominated film, which is essentially the Swedish version of a Lifetime Original Movie with a domestic violence plot line to boot, follows renowned conductor Daniel Daréus (Michael Nyqvist) as he returns to his childhood home in the north of Sweden after suffering a heart attack in the middle of one of his concerts. As a kid, Daniel was ruthlessly beaten and bullied by his peers, but he escaped this harsh childhood with the dream of making music that would connect with people. Upon his return home, Daniel becomes the cantor for the local church choir and starts to bring the townspeople together though what he sees as the spiritual quality of music. Complications arise when Daniel confronts a jealous church pastor, an abusive husband, and various choir members who doubt the sincerity of Daniel's project. Unfortunately, the only remarkable thing about Heaven is how painfully generic it is. Everything in this film is simple and dull, as if the story arcs, characterization, dialogue, and music were all clumsily smashed into creation by a blindfolded kid with an unwieldy sledgehammer rather than by a skilled artist with a deft touch. The problem begins with a weak script that relies entirely on meager clichés. For example, our hero, Daniel, is the stereotypical passionate artist, but he's severely lacking in depth. All we know is that he loves music, falls in love with a girl, and then dies, both randomly and predictably. His foil, the uptight Pastor Stig (Niklas Falk), is disturbed by Daniel's free-flowing ways and surpasses Daniel only in one-dimensionality. In a particularly ridiculous scene, Stig gets into an argument with his wife, Inger (Ingella Olsson), over his conservative ideas about sexuality. Stig slut- shames his wife, explodes and has passionate sex with her, and then denounces the whole incident the next morning. This tired portrait of the repressed and hypocritical clergyman does nothing for the film, nor adds any interesting conflict or complexity.Beyond the disappointingly shallow characterizations, Heaven makes a misstep with the plot's desperate grabs for sentimentality. There is, of course, the domestic violence plot line with the overdone, over-the-top abusive husband that makes a mere caricature of this real and important social problem. The issue is not that people like the outrageous abuser Conny (Per Morberg) do not exist in real life, but that he and his wife, Gabriella (Helen Sjöholm), are written in such a hollow way so as to make it seem like the professionals behind Heaven have never actually encountered a real human being who has been involved the cycle of abuse. In the end, Heaven exhibits a detached artificiality that undermines the film's attempt to say something meaningful about the tragedy of abusive relationships and about the empowering triumph for those who survive them. Then there's Tore (André Sjöberg), the young man who is at first shunned and underestimated by members of the choir for his intellectual disability and then ultimately accepted. Despite the fact that the film obviously casts Tore in a positive light, it is nothing more than cheap idealization. Heaven doesn't demonstrate respect Tore as person or a character, but instead uses him as bait for warm fuzzies and reduces him to the object of a patronizing smile. The film's dialogue also betrays some serious flaws. Heaven takes little advantage of the filmic medium, and the characters often end up explaining their motivations and feelings outright rather than illustrating them through distinctive behavior, well-written characterization, and revealing cinematic techniques. For instance, when Stig shuts down the choir, he yells at Daniel unnecessarily, "I'm taking the choir away from you!" Later when Inger criticizes Stig's vendetta against Daniel, she shouts, "You're not angry at him, but at what he evokes in you!" Of course, the English subtitles may not capture the exact essence of the original Swedish, but the fact remains that a truly solid script would be able to communicate its themes without any of these clunky verbal explanations. Some movies are disappointing in their failure to live up to their full potential, but As It Is in Heaven is not one of them. Wobbly from the start, Heaven is terrible in a boring kind of way. Perhaps time is partly to blame for how stale the movie feels, and it is possible that in its day, Heaven had some aura of charm and novelty. However, in 2014, it's difficult to see through the haze of bathetic storytelling and overdone conventions.

stephanlinsenhoff (On Mon, 2/16/09, Kay Pollak wrote: Date: Monday, February 16, 2009, 4:55 AM Hej Stephan! Thank you for your exiting view of the movie. I recognize many thoughts, we who have made the film, had during the shooting. Kay Pollak. If everybody has found it's own sound: than, only then:... In spite of being the most beloved Swedish film (seen by 1 158 415 visitors for 88 500 317 SEK) this movie failed to receive a single Swedish Golden Beetle, the most prestigious Swedish film award and nominated for an Oscar. Genuine Swedish, a movie by and for the Swedes: their film. Writer and lecturer for 'new age' management psychology and again-director Kay Pollak reaches with this movie the Swedish Everyman's heart, belonging to the social democratic proletarian culture – yesterdays Artur Artur Lundkvist, Harry Martinsson, Vilhelm Moberg, Eyvind Johnson, Gösta Gustav Jansson, Nils Bohman and today Marianne Fredriksson, Linda Olsson. The social democratic idea allows individual development when the group has "found it's sound". Daniels mother, aware of this, crosses the border, promising a school outside the Swedish establishment. The Swedish model was designed for the Swedish working class. This class-travel of social rise aimed education, a better salary, triggering transitional conflicts. For a time "The Marginal Man"/woman (1937, E. Stonequist). The kaypollakquestion: is in todays globalization yesterdays social democratic idea still sound and safe? The kaypollakanswer can be found in the movies beginning and ending. The between: love, jealousy, domestic violence, intolerance are common events. Vi hear the summer wind, moving the cornfield and the violin playing boy Daniel, interrupted by sequences of the conductor Daniels breakdown, beaten by the village boy Conny and his friends. The widowed mothers promise violates the Swedish social democratic basics. The end of the movie: Daniels death or dream? Finding in the cornfield the boy Daniel, lifting him up in his arms - while the choir, initiated by the disabled Tony starts without the conductor and eventual joined by the audience. In his absence he is among them. One of them. The steadily growing choir is prepared by Daniel Dareus for this moment. The Swedish choir, joined by the Austrian audience, demonstrates the poor Swedes 'richness' (CJL Almqvist, Svenska fattigdomens betydelse, 1838). Guided by disabled disability. Thus can yesterdays social democratic idea, transformed, in spite of Swedish capitalistic backyard-egoism, participate in globalization. When each has found it's own sound: then, only then: As it is in heaven ...or as Helene Sjöholms Gabriela sings: "I want to feel that I have lived my life."