There's nothing funny about mental illness, nor is there anything funny about what people who suffer from a mental illness experience on a daily basis. None of which has stopped the masters of sensitivity in Hollywood from making a variety of exploitive movies that laugh at peoples' suffering and perpetuate stereotypes. So it was with a measure of trepidation that I began to watch the Norwegian film Elling.

Nominated for the Academy Award for best foreign film in 2001, Elling tells the story of two men who are deemed ready to begin their integration back into society after a stay in a state mental institution. Elling (played by Per Christian Ellefsen) and Kjell Bjarne (played by Sven Nordin) had been roommates while institutionalized, and so it seemed only natural that they continue that relationship on the outside.

Physically the two characters are as different as night and day; Elling is small and neat, while Kjell Bjarne is large and sloppy. Although we are never given a diagnosis for the conditions either man was institutionalized for, we do know that Elling had lived at home with his mother until she died and is terrified of the world outside the walls of wherever he lives. Kjell Bjarne, on the other hand, is able to handle leaving the apartment, he just doesn't appear to be firing on all cylinders and his emotional development seems to have stalled somewhere in early adolescence.

Throughout the course of the movie we follow the two from their first tentative interactions with the world outside their apartment door, to a $4000 phone sex bill, to actual contact with other human beings. With Elling as our guide - his character supplies occasional narration - we gain valuable lessons in perspective that are both humorous and insightful: "Some people go skiing in the North Pole, while I have problems just crossing a restaurant floor." That one line of dialogue says more about what a person suffering from persistent anxiety experiences every day than an entire textbook on the subject could ever communicate.

Per Christian Ellefsen's depiction of Elling is wonderful as he is able to somehow make the performance funny without the humour ever being at Elling's expense. True, he is fussy, uptight, insecure, and looks like he could be scared of his own shadow, but that just makes the triumph of going grocery shopping on his own for the first time that much more heroic. As mentioned earlier, Elling also provides narration for the movie, so it is told from his point of view, but sometimes the contrast between what Elling "thinks" and what reality shows provides for some lovely moments of humour. His attempt to look cool by wearing a trench coat and sunglasses makes him look more like a cross between a dirty old man and the secret police.