Ove Lindahl, a 59-year-old widower, lives in a townhouse neighborhood where he was the chairman of the neighborhood association until Rune, his former friend, replaced him. Rune is now paralysed after having a stroke, and is being cared for by his wife, Anita. Ove is depressed, and has been ever since his wife, Sonja, a schoolteacher, died from cancer six months earlier. Having been pushed into retiring from the railroad company where he has worked for 43 years, Ove's daily routine consists of loudly policing minor infractions of his neighborhood's policies and visiting Sonja's headstone to converse with her.
After settling his affairs, Ove attempts to hang himself. He has a flashback to his childhood. His mother died when he was a child, leaving him alone with his quiet father, a mechanic at the train company. His father shared his knowledge of engines with Ove, who had a part-time job at the train yard. Having done particularly well at his exams, he reports his results to his father, who is so eager to spread the news that he fails to take proper care and is hit by a train and killed.
Back in the present, Ove's suicide is interrupted by Iranian immigrant Parvaneh, her Swedish husband Patrick, and their two children, who are moving into the house across the street. Parvaneh is not intimidated by Ove's gruff and angry demeanor, and Ove is eventually forced to abandon his noose under the constant interruptions and clamor, switching to carbon monoxide poisoning from his car's exhaust. As he loses consciousness, he recollects another experience from his past, when he had just begun working at the train company. Two men from the local council, whom Ove dubs "the Whiteshirts", arrive at young Ove's home and declare that it should be demolished. Ove instead fixes the house. Then, one night, his neighbor's house catches fire; Ove comes to the rescue and saves two people, but sparks from the flames cause his own house to catch fire, and the Whiteshirts prevent that fire from being tackled because they had planned to demolish it anyway.
Now homeless as a result, young Ove sleeps on a train at work; he awakens late to find a young woman, Sonja, sitting across from him. He is smitten with her and returns to the same early train each morning hoping she'll turn up again. After three weeks, she does, and they begin dating. She encourages him to return to school, and he earns a degree in engineering.
In the present, Ove's suicide is once again interrupted by Parvaneh, who needs a lift to the hospital because her husband has had an accident. Ove complies, and then supervises Parvaneh and Patrick's two daughters, Sepideh and Nasanin, in the lobby, until he causes a scene and is made to sit outside. Later, Ove goes to the train station, planning to jump in front of a train. As he stands on the platform, another man faints and falls onto the tracks, whereupon Ove jumps down and rescues him. His act of heroism is witnessed by Lena, a reporter from the local newspaper, who tracks him down at home, but he evades her with Parvaneh's help.
Parvaneh asks Ove to teach her how to drive, and he eventually agrees. He tells Parvaneh about his past friendship with Rune, and how they had worked well together on the neighborhood association board but grew apart over the years in part because Rune preferred Volvo cars and Ove Saabs, until Rune eventually organized a "coup" and replaced Ove as chairman. At Parvaneh's forcible prompting, Ove takes in a stray cat and begins to bond with it. He repairs a bike he confiscated from a local teen, Adrian, and returns it to Adrian, who works at a kebab shop with another youth called Mirsad. Ove notices Mirsad's eye makeup and asks if he is "one of those gays", but does not shun him.
Despite his improved relations with his neighbors, Ove has an altercation with two Whiteshirts. He then attempts suicide using a shotgun, but is again interrupted, this time by Adrian and Mirsad ringing his doorbell. Adrian tells Ove that Mirsad has been kicked out of his house after coming out as gay to his family, and needs a place to stay. Ove reluctantly invites Mirsad in.
Ove discovers that the Whiteshirts are close to forcibly moving Rune to a nursing home, information that Anita kept from Sonja and Ove out of consideration for their own struggles. Ove admits to Sonja that he's been a fool for holding a grudge against Rune, then declares war against the Whiteshirts, but his typically abrasive interactions with the authorities produce little results. A frustrated Ove tells Parvaneh about the vacation he and a pregnant Sonja took to Spain, which ended in a bus crash. While Ove escaped largely unharmed, Sonja suffered a miscarriage and other injuries that left her reliant on a wheelchair. She returns to teaching, but the local authorities attempt to disqualify her due to a lack of a wheelchair ramp at the school; when they ignore Ove's pleas, he went to the school at night and built one.
In the present day, the Whiteshirts arrive to take Rune but are met by journalist Lena, who confronts them with documents showing suspicious financial motivations and questionable practices. Faced with public inquiry and Anita backed by a line of quietly supportive neighbors, the Whiteshirts are forced to retreat. Ove reconciles with Rune.
Ove collapses while walking in the neighborhood and is taken to the hospital. The doctors tell Parvaneh that her "father" has an enlarged heart, but will survive. Laughing, she tells Ove he is terrible at dying, then goes into labor and gives birth to a boy. Ove gifts his unborn child's crib to Parvaneh, along with presents for her daughters, who now refer to him as grandpa.
Several months later, Parvaneh wakes to a winter storm and notices that the ever-punctual Ove has not cleared his pathway. She and Patrick run to Ove's house to find he has passed away in his bed, with the cat lying beside him. He has left strict instructions for a modest funeral, but the service is packed with neighbors. Having finally found peace, Ove awakens aboard a train to find Sonja sitting across from him once more.
On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 91% based on 117 reviews, with an average rating of 7.22/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "A Man Called Ove's winsome sincerity — and Rolf Lassgård's affectingly flinty performance in the title role — keep it from succumbing to excess sentimentality."[10] On Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating to reviews, the film has a weighted average score of 70 out of 100, based on 21 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[11]
A remake was produced in the United States by Tom Hanks, who stars in the film.[26] In January 2022, it was announced that the film, titled A Man Called Otto, would be directed by Marc Forster, with David Magee writing the screenplay. Filming began in February 2022 in Pittsburgh with Mariana Treviño, Rachel Keller and Manuel Garcia-Rulfo co-starring alongside Hanks.[27][28] In February 2022, Sony Pictures acquired worldwide distribution rights to the film for $60 million, the highest ever paid for a film at the European Film Market, and set it for a Christmas 2022 release.[29]
^ abNorman, Isabel; Nykänen, Joni (18 January 2016). "Glädjevrålet på Guldbaggegalan" [The Joy of the Guldbagge Awards]. Aftonbladet (in Swedish). Archived from the original on 17 June 2018. Retrieved 19 January 2016.
^Henderson, Odie (30 September 2016). "A Man Called Ove". RogerEbert.com. Ebert Digital LLC. Archived from the original on 1 October 2016. Retrieved 2 January 2017.
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