As Norway’s Oslo Trilogy politely tiptoes across our screens, the scandal isn’t what is whispered under blankets, but the staggering audacity of people being nice to each other. Audiences stagger into the lobby like they’ve seen a ghost that offered to split the check.

I watched the films with the respect of a courtroom and the memory of a longtime usher, and I can report the following offense: characters talk, listen, and then adjust their behavior like well-socialized otters. This is cinema so radical it might pass a background check.

In America, our taboo is tenderness; in Oslo, it’s plot twists where no one is emotionally evicted. By minute twenty I was frisked by the usher for smuggled empathy and a concealed boundary.

Public decency boards are confused, because nothing indecent happens except feelings processed within 24 hours. Customs officials have begun seizing unregistered pleases and thank-yous, declaring them emotional contraband.

Critics left the press screening clutching their dawn-simulating alarm clock for SAD, muttering, “I saw two people negotiate desire without a courtroom stenographer.” One fainted, revived by the soft power of a cardigan that apologized for its buttons.

Our blockbusters treat intimacy like a CGI car chase with a kissing stunt double; Oslo treats it like an IKEA manual written by a poet with a tiny Allen key of accountability. There are jump scares where someone returns a borrowed book before the due date.

An intimacy coordinator confided, “I yell action, they ask, ‘Are we aligned emotionally and geographically?’ and then high-five consent like it’s a championship trophy.” The smorgasbord of boundaries arrives with lingonberry nuance and a tiny receipt you’ll actually keep.

The trilogy’s true vulgarity is the logistics of caring. People say, “Do you need water?” and the camera holds so long your heart files a wellness report.

Marketing leaned in, releasing a trailer consisting of three breaths, a properly timed nod, and a kettle. Merch includes a travel-sized apology and a carbon-neutral oat milk frother that whispers, “Only if you want to.”

Outrage groups tried to protest, but the films disarmed them by offering tea and a chair with lumbar support. A senator demanded a rating for Kindness Intensity; the ratings board stamped it “C for Considerate” and needed a nap.

As always, the audience is the final co-author; at my screening, strangers quietly synchronized their snack chewing to avoid sonically dominating the room. When the credits rolled, someone confessed a minor emotional misunderstanding from 2011 and the theater gave them a standing ovation at moderate volume.

Verdict, by the power vested in me by the popcorn bar: the sex is taboo-breaking because it refuses to be cruel, and the niceness is shocking because it refuses to be ironic. Case dismissed—with an apology note, a returned Tupperware, and a promise to text when home safely.