Reprise is a quintessentially esoteric art house film. For some people, that may be all you need to know to stop reading. For others that statement might be intriguing. I mention it without judgment, because I know that this kind of film appeals to some and repels others.

The story focuses on Phillip and Erik, a pair of 20-something Norwegian friends who both aspire to be novelists. The film opens with the two of them putting their manuscripts into a mailbox to send to publishers. We then see their fantasy of what their life will be like. It really isn't a fantasy of great success. Rather they see themselves not being terrible popular, but generating a cult following. They see their lives branching out from this point.

Then the film jumps ahead to the reality six months later. Erik is still unpublished, but Phillip has had critical acclaim and a taste of celebrity before he has a terrible breakdown. He is just being released from a mental hospital. Erik continues to work at writing, but Phillip has no inspiration.

The story is told in a very non-linear fashion, moving forward and back in time at breakneck speeds. It pulls in all the things that are important to these two would be writers: punk music, literature, their friends and girlfriends. At one point after being released from the hospital, Phillip asks his former girlfriend Kari, "What was I like?" He has lost his sense of self and struggles to find a new self.

The film seeks to give the feeling of life for this generation. It is filled with humor, angst, passion, joy, and melancholy. It is a complex mèlange of story, emotion, characters, and music. At times it goes in so many directions that you might think the film has Attention Deficit Disorder, but that too might be a part of the generation it seeks to describe.

The characters are just entering adulthood with all the hopes and fears that go with that transition. They are busy establishing their identities. At times they are defined by their friends, or their music, or their passions. They are also busy seeking happiness, but not really knowing just what that entails.

The characters struggle to understand the meaning of their successes and failures—in writing, in life, and in love. The way things have worked out in their lives is so different from what they had expected. They are at times torn between living the life that has happened to them and trying to live the life they imagined.

The film doesn't tell us everything about these characters. We're never really sure what led to Phillip's breakdown. They say his obsession with Kari led to the psychosis, but we don't really see how that obsession worked, although he tries to reconnect with her as he searches for his writing inspiration. Is it that he couldn't handle success? That he didn't really know what he wanted? We're left to speculate.

The film ends as it began with fantasy. The opening fantasy is where they expected their lives to go. The closing fantasy begins with the reality they are in and considers what should happen from this point. Like the opening fantasy there is a certain rose-colored quality to the fantasy. But knowing how the first fantasy failed to come to pass, we have little confidence that what should happen really will.

The film is both light-hearted and dark, frenetic and paced. This gives the film a certain feel of reality. It may not be a pleasant reality, but reality rarely matches up with the fantasies we project on our lives.