Life begins at 67 for the title character of this wry, wintry comedy by Norwegian director Bent Hamer. O’Horten opens with what seems to be the end of the line for Odd Horten (Bard Owe), a mild-mannered train engineer whose sole enthusiasm is smoking his pipe. But starting with a misadventure at his retirement party, Horten’s life quietly comes off the rails. Before long, he’s swimming naked in public pools alongside rambunctious lesbians, having an early morning tour of Oslo from a man who believes he can drive with his eyes closed, and enjoying other activities that appear on no one’s bucket list but really ought to.

It’s all rendered with a featherlight touch by Hamer, who displayed a similar flair for the modestly surreal in his 2003 cult hit Kitchen Stories. (He also made the terrific Bukowski adaptation Factotum.) And while this tale is ultimately too slight and too sweet to have the emotional resonance or the philosophical heft that fellow Scandinavian miniaturists Aki Kaurismaki and Roy Andersson derive from like-minded material, O’Horten is still a very appealing reminder that we should never feel too old to make new discoveries or new friends.