Before we get into Off Track 2 (now on Netflix), let’s sort some shit. The movie is a sequel to 2022’s Off Track, a Swedish dramedy about a woman who finds direction in her life by committing to a cross-country skiing marathon. The new movie is a Swedish dramedy about that same woman, who finds even more direction in her life by committing to a bicycling marathon. And if you think this is Netflix at the peak of its content-recycling powers, think again. Earlier this year, the streamer released The Wrong Track, a remake of Off Track that’s a Norwegian dramedy about a woman who finds direction in her life by committing to a cross-country skiing marathon. (Hey, at least it’s set in a slightly different Scandinavian country, right?) Funny story: I watched The Wrong Track without remembering that I’d watched Off Track, which speaks volumes about Off Track, and I watched Off Track 2 without remembering that I watched The Wrong Track, which speaks volumes about The Wrong Track. Even funnier, I dubbed both Off Track and The Wrong Track to be “nice,” and gave them lukewarm positive reviews. Now let’s see if I have another one of those for you – or not.
The Gist: Three years have passed since the HIGHLY CONSEQUENTIAL EVENTS of Off Track: Episode 1: A New Slope. (I know. There are no slopes in cross-country skiing. Just stop nitpicking and go with it, please.) Remember Lisa (Katia Winter), the alcoholic, divorcee and single mom who had no direction in her life so she committed to a cross-country skiing marathon? Sure you do, even if I don’t, and you remember she eventually finished the race, thus fulfilling the sports-movie metaphor in quite a tidy fashion. Did she live happily ever after? Sort of: She’s a pedicurist now, she’s been dating nice-guy cop Anders (Ulf Stenberg) since she wheezed over the finish line, and she hasn’t had a drink since. And to top it off, Anders proposes to her, and they sign the paperwork to buy a house. BLISS IS IMMINENT.
The opposite is true for Lisa’s brother Daniel (Fredrik Hallgren). The two of them have been training for the Vatternrundan, a 192-mile bike race, which is pretty much exactly like the ski race but in warmer weather. Daniel is still married to Klara (Rakel Warmlander), but just barely. They have a daughter now, who they were trying desperately to conceive in the first movie. But as all people with a bit of wisdom know, having a kid fixes nothing. Daniel pedals to their marriage-counseling appointment, which is good, but his level of commitment to it leaves a lot to be desired. In fact, his top life priority right now is training for the stupidass race, and Klara is fed up. She wants a divorce. “I think it’s for the best,” she calmly asserts.
But, you can’t spell “Lisa” from “bliss” because it’s missing an “a.” Which is a way of saying she’s starting to second-guess a life of domesticity with Anders and her daughter. She meets up with her friends from her old boozin’ days, ordes a cola, has a bit of fun and then gets temptation dangled in front of her in the form of Calle (Alexander Karim), a former friend (presumably with benefits) and part-ayy dude who loses a bet and commits to racing the Vatternrundan with her, and he’s fine with that because he’s still got a thing for her. And even though she gets tagged with a car and breaks two ribs, she defies doctor’s orders and continues to train with Calle, choosing not to tell Anders about her not-quite-ex. Uh oh.
Meanwhile, Daniel, looking for something he and Klara can do together to mend their rift, suggests she set aside the divorce overtures and train with him for the Vatternrundan. He’ll even abandon his Very Serious racing team and ride with her and her only. She agrees, and then we get a scene in which we want to yell at the screen, she doesn’t need a COACH she needs a PARTNER, you dip! And when race day finally gets here, you just know things are going to go to shit, at least until they stop going to shit, because movies like this never roll credits on a pile of shit.
What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Off Track 2 will eventually be forgotten by the time Off Track 3 debuts, which isn’t confirmed at all, but is lightly teased in the final moments when someone drops a joke about a swimming marathon.
Performance Worth Watching: Winter, Hallgren, Stenberg and Warmlander are all equally good here, warm, gently funny at times, assertive without being jerks. These movies might not deserve them.
Memorable Dialogue: Here’s another metaphor for you: Klara rides behind Daniel, trying to keep up, and he says, “If you’re right behind me, I’ll break the wind for you.”
Sex and Skin: A couple of naked bums; the implication of intercourse via offscreen panting and moaning.
Our Take: Off Track 2 inspires just enough commitment to its characters to make us feel modestly invested in their well-being for 90-odd minutes – and then we can forget about them for another year or two before Netflix commissions Off Track: Episode 3: Attack of the Plot Clones. I can’t help but picture Netflix “content makers” in a vast factory churning out movies and donning them in Stormtrooper armor so they can fire a lot of laser blasts and never hit their mark. I think that’s a metaphor? For the streamer’s creativity, or lack thereof? It’s a rickety metaphor, but I guess it gets the job done.
Anyway. Before I got cynical, I said “modestly invested in their well-being,” which is a wishy-washy compliment. And a testament to the breezy-but-not-insubstantial tone cultivated by the cast, who create characters with one foot firmly in some realities of mid-life struggles. Their situations may be rote – and occasionally punctuated with mild hijinks that never get too nutty, or too funny, for that matter – but Winter, Stallgren, Ulfberg and Warmlander know how to work within the margins to generate some substance here and there. They have their work cut out for them this time, because the plotting is a bit haphazard, especially when it insists upon throwing in a few contrived mini-crises to beef up the third-act stakes.
I don’t blame the cast for the forgettable nature of these films, but the writing, which insists upon asserting the same threadbare sports-movie philosophies we’ve seen dozens and dozens of times before. “You just have to get back in the saddle and keep pedaling,” a character states at the finish line, underscoring the blatantly obvious application of the race metaphor to human relationships. And we can only wonder how miserable Lisa and Daniel and everyone would be if they didn’t have stupidly long distances to ski, bike, swim, run, crabwalk, wheelbarrow-race, toboggan or walking-lunge through.
Our Call: Diminishing returns. SKIP IT.
John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.