The dead are returning in the chilly Norwegian drama Handling the Undead, a sad, somber attempt to guide the zombie genre from midnight movie to arthouse. It works in parts, as a study of the ache and irrationality of grief, asking its characters how much they’re willing to accept and deny in order to see their loved ones again. But the first-time director Thea Hvistendahl’s patience-insisting slow burn can be testing, like watching a block of ice slowly melt, a story told in the smallest of drips, some of which sink in deeper than others.
On a summer’s day in Oslo, three different dynamics are upended by this confounding re-emergence. A single mother (The Worst Person in the World’s Renate Reinsve) is stopped from a suicide attempt by her father (Bjørn Sundquist), who has brought with him her once-dead son, suddenly alive. An elderly woman (Bente Børsum) attends the funeral of her partner (Olga Damani) only to find her back at their home that night. And the death of a mother (Bahar Pars) rocks the life of her family only for her husband (Reinsve’s Worst Person co-star Anders Danielsen Lie) to find her breathing once again.
