There is a streak of boundary-pushing and wantonness to this Norwegian comedy-horror that bodes well for the career of director Viljar Bøe, even if this, his third feature, is not executed with quite enough finesse to match the rabid premise. It hangs on the quintessential modern dating conundrum: what would you do if you bagged your dream partner, only to find out that they live with someone who dresses and acts like their dog?
That’s the dilemma for scatty student Sigrid (Katrine Lovise Øpstad Fredriksen), who, despite turning up to their first date in her gym clothes, seems to have struck on an implausible match of opposites in well-tailored, impeccably mannered, calorie-counting multimillionaire orphan Christian (Gard Løkke). She lounges in his bachelor mansion, gets crispy bacon on demand at breakfast – but almost runs away howling when his “pet”, Frank (Nicolai Narvesen Lied), crawls in on all fours during dinner. The impression she has hooked up with a barking-mad Bruce Wayne is compounded by the eerie normality with which Christian treats this arrangement.
In the interests of love, Sigrid decides to take the higher path, educating herself about “puppy play” on the internet. But there appears to be nothing sexual going on between Christian and Frank, who is his childhood friend and fellow loner. As Sigrid habituates herself to a menage à trois, Bøe milks this scenario for layers of delightful discomfort. His film isn’t a Nordic S&M comedy of manners like 2019’s Dogs Don’t Wear Pants, nor a liberal probing of delusion like 2007’s Lars and the Real Girl. It also thrives on a spikier paranoia: that all this theatre is really a form of gaslighting, just with doggie treats, and Sigrid is being manipulated or groomed in some way.
Both leads are good, but the ultra-controlled Løkke – with his poster-boy looks and too-timely smiles – is pivotal to stringing out the farce. Good Boy darkens in its second half, it goes in a rather conventional horror direction and, sadly, it opts not to get truly weird and tail-chase its more original impulses (like, as Sigrid asks, whether Frank gets to have sex). Still, there is enough meat here – touching on digital dating etiquette and the underlying emotional viscera – for a Hollywood remake. Time for Matt Damon to wriggle into that furry outfit.
• Good Boy is available on digital platforms on 11 September.
