No Comment Skewers Pathetic Politicians and Their Spin Doctors, With One Role Inspired by Kellyanne Conway

For politicians, does a “no comment” in reaction to difficult questions about actual or even potential scandals keep you safe or actually land you in just the hot water you are trying to avoid? Just ask the conservative former Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg, who led the government 2013-2021 and faced political and media pressure because of stock trading by her husband, whom critics suspected of benefitting from inside information.

No Comment, the new film from director Petter Næss (Elling, Gone With the Woman) and screenwriter Ståle Stein Berg (Two Lives, Occupied), is loosely based on the case and imagines what’s going on behind the closed doors of political power players. Laila Goody and Pia Tjelta star in the movie, whose ensemble cast also includes Anders Baasmo and Torbjorn Aamodt.

No Comment celebrated its international premiere this week in the main competition lineup of the29th editionof theTallinn Black Nights Film Festival(PÖFF) in Estonia.

“Alma Solvik (Goody) gets caught up in a scandal before elections. During Alma’s term in power, her husband Sondre has done transactions on the stock exchange, apparently using the government’s inside information,” reads a synopsis for No Comment. “Alma puts together a crisis communication headquarters, led by Karianne (Tjelta), that formulates the tactics for communicating with the public. The Prime Minister is also a prime minister at home, and therefore they launch the campaign ‘Sondre is the culprit’ — the elections must be won, after all.”

If any of this reminds you of political scandals wherever in the world you may be, the creative team behind No Comment will not be surprised.

“My take has always been that this is a universal story about the will to power and how far you’re willing to go to maintain the power and the position you have,” Næss told The Hollywood Reporter. “In the movie, she wins the election, but in real life, everyone said she should step back. But her stubbornness killed her.”

Berg told THR that the creative team had to work quickly. “The premise was that the film would be finished before the [parliamentary] election in Norway this year [in early September], so we were in a bit of a rush,” he shared.

How did the stars of No Comment prepare for their roles? “There was an inspiration for my role that Ståle told me about, Kellyanne Conway,” Tjelta told THR. “I read a little bit about her and about how different Norwegian PR houses worked, spoke a little bit to some people that I know, but it was all there in the script.” Among the “obvious acting material” she found there included “the need for power, the length she would go to get what she needs, what she wants.”

Tjelta also recently played a teacher married to a mayor in the film drama Don’t Call Me Mama. “They are both movies about power play,” she noted. “So the themes are not too different, even though they are two very, very different movies.”

Goody could model her role partly on her own country’s former Prime Minister. “What struck me was that she’s a very composed woman. She gives very little away,” the star tells THR. “So, when this case blew up in the media, she was impossible to read. And I remember thinking, ‘what’s going on inside of her?’” So, the role was an easy “yes” for Goody. “Also, I really love political satire,” she shared. “I love The West Wing or Wag the Dog, and I thought the script was brilliant.”

Her director “didn’t want us to imitate” the former first couple, though, the star explained. “I speak a different dialect, for example.”

Either way, Goody got to play the most powerful person in the country, which must have been a treat for an actress. “But she’s so pathetic,” he responded. “I think what’s most funny is the will to power. It’s almost childlike, in a way.”

Næss echoed that. “I think it’s so funny to see adults not being able to be grown-ups,” he told THR. “I think it’s interesting to see people who should know better come up with a lie, and everybody tells you that you’re lying, but you stick to the lie.”

His vision for the movie was to “put a camera where a politician doesn’t want to have a camera and where we see them as a human being struggling.”

At one point, he thought about leaning less into comedy. “In editing, we were trying to tweak this toward more of a thriller-like thing, but the way this movie worked best was as a comedy, as a satire, when these people were quirky, strange. The script is so good, and the situations are quite clear, so for me and us, it was just about playing along and having fun.”

The two female lead characters are providing laughs, for example, in one scene in No Comment that shows them rapping together in hopes of mustering up courage amid the political scandal. But that was hard work on set. “Oh, the rap took practice, I promise you,” Goody said. “We had one of the best female rappers as a coach.” And Tjelta shared: “The rap was the hardest thing I’ve ever done.”

The tone of No Comment was less harsh than some in Norway had expected, the creative team pointed out. “Politicians in her party were afraid that we were going to murder her character on screen,” said Goody. “But this movie is actually made with a lot of warmth and some compassion for people in power. But of course, it’s very important in a democracy to make fun of the people with the highest power.”

Næss highlighted some things that the film doesn’t go into out of respect for the former first couple’s family. “They have two children, and we don’t mention them. We don’t bring them in,” he explained. “Many people also expected that we wanted to make this movie to tip the election, but that was not the point.”

Emphasized Tjelta: “Everything is true, but not accurate. Everything mentioned in the film has happened. So for Norwegians, it’s a story that we are living here and now.”

Humor can heal, or at least provide relief, writer Berg emphasized. “The importance of laughter can’t be emphasized enough, especially in these times, because we’re enraged every day,” he told THR. “We need some other feelings in our bodies as well, and laughter is important just to survive.”

No Comment also has lessons for the real world, the creative team said. “You feel when politicians are lying, and you can see it,” concluded Goody. “I think politicians would benefit if they started to be more honest and open, because people are so sick of the spin.”