Driving Mum is a 2022 Icelandic-Estonian drama-comedy from director Hilmar Oddsson that turns a son's grief into a strange, tender road trip.
What is Driving Mum about?
Jon lives alone on a remote farm with little to break the silence until his elderly mother dies, leaving behind one last request that he cannot ignore. Rather than call for help, he straps her into the passenger seat of an old car and sets out across Iceland's empty roads to carry out her wish himself, with only the family dog, Bresnef, for company. What starts as a practical errand slowly turns into something closer to a reckoning, as the landscape outside the windshield seems to mirror everything Jon has left unsaid for years. Þröstur Leó Gunnarsson plays Jon with a dry, weathered stillness that suits a man more comfortable with sheep and machinery than people, while Kristbjörg Kjeld gives the mother a presence that lingers even after she's gone. The film leans on Iceland's stark scenery and long silences rather than dialogue to do its emotional work, and its humor arrives sideways, often from the sheer absurdity of the situation Jon has put himself in.
About the cast
The ensemble includes Þröstur Leó Gunnarsson, Kristbjörg Kjeld, Tómas Lemarquis, Hera Hilmar, Harpa Arnardóttir, Kjartan Bjargmundsson, Þorsteinn Gunnar Bjarnason and Arnmundur Ernst Björnsson, a mix of familiar Icelandic screen faces built around a small, intimate story.
Context & significance
Driving Mum is an Estonia-Iceland co-production shot largely in Iceland's rural interior, where the isolation of the setting becomes part of the film's texture. At 112 minutes, it belongs to a small but distinct strand of Nordic drama-comedy that finds dark humor in mourning without ever mocking it, closer in spirit to a slow character study than a conventional road-trip caper.
Watching Driving Mum on Ktime
Driving Mum streams on K-Time with Persian dubbing and Persian subtitles, so Farsi-speaking viewers can follow every quiet exchange between Jon and his mother without losing the film's tone. Watching requires only a free K-Time account login, and the whole site, including this page, is built around a Farsi-first experience for the Iranian diaspora.