State of Happiness
B OX S E T
This classy Norwegian drama is set in the coastal town of Stavanger in 1969, a pivotal time for the community.
The fishing and canning industries are slowly dying, while the oil boom is about to start. Against this backdrop, the series focuses on the fortunes of four young people whose lives are all affected by this period of change.
Anne Regine Ellingsaeter plays
Anna Kellevik, a bright, ambitious young woman from a modest farming background who is working as a secretary at the town hall. As the drama opens, Anna has just got engaged to wealthy Christian Nyman (Amund Harboe), who works as a diver on a North Sea rig and whose family own and run one of the town’s main employers, Nyman Shipping and Cannery.
One of the workers at the Cannery is Toril Torstensen (Malene Wadel) who discovers that she is pregnant with the child of an American oilman who abandons her. She is then forced into a marriage she doesn’t want by her deeply religious mother.
The fourth protagonist is Texan lawyer Jonathan Kay (Bart Edwards) who has been sent to Stavanger by his employer, Phillips Petroleum, initially to terminate the company’s agreement with the Norwegian government.
As the series progresses, the cracks in the relationship between Anna and Christian begin to show at the same time as the attraction between Anna and Jonathan grows, while the social, economic and political implications of the booming oil industry and the longerterm effects it will have on the whole community become apparent.