Watched a film the other day. Or rather ... watched 10 minutes of it: "My Norwegian Holiday". I didn't like it, although they did visit my home town, Bergen, and they did make fun of a few Norwegian stereotypes. But there was another reason, which I will come back to.
What puzzled me was the number of very positive user reviews on sites like Metacritic. I accept of course that there are different tastes, but for this one ..? Turns out it's a Hallmark movie (never heard about those before), and the general opinion (as I remember it) among those who liked it was that it was very good for a Hallmark movie. OK.
I also noticed a lot of 1 star reviews. And those were mostly from Norwegians, and here's why: They tried to speak Norwegian, even the Bergen dialect which I subscribe to. But there were no Norwegian actors and it shows. Ouch!!! It hurts.
One of the positive reviewers wrote (as I remembered it) something like "I suppose I would have given it 1 star if I was Norwegian. But I'm American". No, I'm not claiming that Americans have poor taste (they do - JUST JOKING).
I wouldn't mind if the dialogue was all in English, even if the action takes place almost completely in Norway. But if you want Norwegian speech, please use actors that know the language. There are several other examples of this unfortunate practice. One particular cringe-worthy episode of X-files comes to mind (there is BTW no Norwegian towns called "Tildeskan").
Now, there are a few examples of non-native actors speaking Norwegian just fine (at least acceptable). In the beginning of John Carpenter's the thing, a dog is chased by an angry, yelling Norwegian. The actor is not Norwegian, but the pronunciation is IMO not perfect, but fairly good,
We also had the HBO Norwegian TV series "Beforeigners". One of the main characters is played by the Finnish actress Krista Kosonen. She doesn't know Norwegian, but she memorized her lines thoroughly without necessarily understanding them. There is an accent, but her character (Alfhildr) comes from the Viking period, so some accent is to be expected. Besides, her pronunciation of Old Norwegian is just as good as mine.
In another film, "De dødes tjern" ("Lake of Death) the dialog is in Norwegian. But one characer is played by the brithish actor Patrick Walshe McBride. He gets aways with it because his character is mute.
pibbuR
PS. I assume that when Norwegian actors perform in English films/TV the result can also sometimes be embarassing. The 13th JDR mentioned a Norwegian comedy(?) series (don't remember the the name). The episodes are filmed in two versions, one with Norwegian dialog and one in English. In my ears there is a very distinct East Norwegian accent in the English part. DS.