In The Sea (Hafið), directed by Baltasar Kormákur, Thórdur (played by Gunnar Eyjólfsson) summons his family to a small town in Iceland for an important announcement. He has been running a small fishery business for the last fifty years, but the financial situation has been going downhill. The Cod War and resulting international treaties gave Iceland a small quota of cod and haddock to catch each year, so bigger companies that can fish farther from the shore are dominating the business, and the company’s accountant may have embezzled some of the profits. Before Thórdur makes the announcement, which clearly has something to do with his inevitable retirement, we become acquainted with his dysfunctional family. Although Thórdur generously provided funds for his son Ágúst (played by Hilmir Snaer Gudnason) to study business administration, Ágúst instead preferred to become a musician, albeit so far he is an unsuccessful songwriter. He also financed the education of his daughter Ragnheidur (played by Gudrún S. Gísladóttir) to learn how to be a television producer, though she is unable to achieve much at the craft in Reykjavík. Thórdur has spent a lifetime manipulating others and even making nasty cracks at his offspring and their spouses. One of those especially manipulated and berated is his oldest son Haraldur (played by Sigurdur Skúlason), who is managing the company and therefore is Thórdur’s scapegoat for whatever is going wrong with the financial situation. Thórdur’s only inheritable asset is the family business, which is mortgaged to the hilt, yet he evidently regards sale of his company to one of the multinationals as a symbolic form of castration. In much of the film we learn how members of the family hate each other. Ágúst left behind an Icelandic girlfriend María (played by Nína Dögg Filippusdóttir) who is still passionate for him, though he is also accompanied on his trip from Paris by a pregnant girlfriend, Françoise (played by Hèléne de Fougerolles), who is also a musician. Thórdur eventually announces that the company needs better management. But he is unprepared when Ágúst turns down his offer to take over management of the company. His three offspring instead want him to sell the company so that they will at least inherit a few crumbs before the company slides into insolvency. When Thórdur refuses to sell, some suggest that he should be committed for mental reasons. But Ágúst, in a fit of rage, comes up with a more ingenious solution. Rather than having the film build suspense for that solution, the film begins with the climax and then evidently is one long flashback. Adapted from a play by Ólafur Haukur Simonarson, the story is based on the King Lear paradigm, with dark humor that would only be appreciated in one city in the United States–New York. If the director is trying to tell us something about Iceland, the message is that there is nothing much to do on a small island with lousy weather but get drunk, employ foreigners to do the dirty work, have sex, engage in temper tantrums, and contemplate that a London hotel room is seven hours away. MH