Vi som går kjøkkenveien: A weirdly charming bet

Is this actually worth the watch?

If you have a thing for old black-and-white comedies that don't take themselves too seriously, you’ll probably have a good time with Vi som går kjøkkenveien. It’s light, breezy, and the kind of movie you put on when you want to see people in suits being baffled by domestic chores. If you hate slow-burn plots or subtitles, stay away. This isn't high art, but it’s definitely not a total drag.

Helga is bored and wealthy, so she makes a bet. You know the drill. She ends up in a kitchen instead of a ballroom, and the whole thing is meant to be a lesson in humility. It’s a very 1930s way of looking at class—everything is just a little bit too clean, even when she's scrubbing floors.

The motorcycle angle is just plain weird

The weirdest part of the whole movie has to be the motorcycle production business. Why is that in here? It feels like the writers had two different scripts and just mashed them together. One minute we’re watching someone try to peel potatoes correctly, and the next we’re dealing with corporate business deals. It’s disorienting. I kind of loved it.

• The kitchen scenes have this weird, stage-play energy.
• Nobody ever seems to get actually tired from the manual labor.
• The dialogue is snappy, even if it feels a bit dated now.

Watching this, I couldn't help but think about movies like The Fair Pretender where the whole "identity swap" trope is played out differently. There’s a similar vibe here, but it feels more grounded in the specific, odd charm of Norwegian cinema from that decade. It’s not trying to change the world. It’s just trying to make you chuckle while the protagonist realizes that being a maid is actually hard work.

The pacing is a bit all over the place. Sometimes scenes linger way too long on a reaction shot, almost to the point of being funny. Other times, the plot jumps forward so fast you miss why someone is suddenly angry. It feels human, though. It’s not a perfectly polished product, which is why it actually feels like a movie people *made* instead of something an algorithm coughed up.

Is it a masterpiece? No. But the actors look like they are having a genuinely good time, which is more than I can say for a lot of modern stuff I’ve sat through lately. The costumes are sharp, the sets are cozy, and there’s a distinct lack of heavy-handed moralizing. It’s just a girl in a kitchen, a diamond ring, and some motorcycles. 🏍️✨

Also, don't miss the way Helga tries to hide her background. She’s terrible at it. Every time she speaks, you can tell she’s used to being the one giving the orders. It’s a small detail, but it makes her character way more relatable than if she was some perfect, secret-keeping machine.