Sweet Things, directed by Henry K. Norvalls, tackles the harassment of women, not through overt misbehavior, but the subtle lack of respect exhibited in the workplace by men with power. It is based on a real life situation with a woman meeting a potential employer who’s not that interested in her actual qualifications. Scriptwriter Line Dalheim observed the scene at a café in Oslo in 2015, and she found the behavior of the potential employer a bit off, yet noticed that she felt mad at the woman going along with it. It’s a catch-22 that too many women know all too much about. What Sweet Things does so well is it never turns the boss into a caricature, and it’s really difficult to pin down any specific thing that he does that is offensive; it’s a fuzzy accumulation of cues. If you can’t see what’s wrong in Sweet Things, then you’re part of the problem.
