Reception
Norwegian newspapers Verdens Gang and Dagbladet both gave the film five out of six points. Verdens Gang's Jon Selås called it "a little film about living" and praised it for its "applied existential philosophy". Dagbladet's Vegard Larsen had certain objections to a few unnecessary scenes, but nevertheless found that the film had met the high expectations created by Hamer's previous films. Aftenposten's Ingunn Økland, on the other hand, felt O' Horten failed to live up to the director's best work, and gave it only four points. She nevertheless pointed out the good qualities in the film, in particular the filming and the soundtrack by John Erik Kaada.
Foreign reviewers also gave the film generally positive reviews; Duane Byrge of The Hollywood Reporter called it a "Warm story from frigid Norway". Variety's Alissa Simon wrote that it "lacks the fully developed characters and tightly constructed narrative of his more poignant and substantial Kitchen Stories", but that it "nevertheless provides a warm and gently humorous divertissement". She also found the production and score excellent. James Rocchi, writing for Cinematical, chose to highlight Bård Owe's performance, and his "warm demeanor" and meticulous "capacity for double-takes". Entertainment Weekly's Lisa Schwarzbaum compared Owe to Jack Nicholson's Warren Schmidt in the film About Schmidt. Like others, she also used Finnish director Aki Kaurismäki as a reference to describe Hamer's particular cinematic style.
O' Horten was picked for the Un Certain Regard-section of the Cannes Film Festival. Here it was praised by one reviewer as "deliciously funny" in a festival that contained few happy stories. This marked the fourth time that Hamer was represented at Cannes, which makes him one of only two Norwegians to accomplish this feat. This instance, however, marked a step up for Hamer, as his previous appearances had been in the slightly less prestigious Directors' Fortnight-category. At the festival, the film was picked for international distribution by the distribution company Sony Pictures Classics. Hamer also won the Norwegian Film Critics' Award in 2008, thereby becoming the first director to win this award three times. At the Amanda Awards that year, O' Horten was nominated for a number of awards – including "Best Film" and "Best Direction" – but won only two: "Best Sound" and "Best Actor in a Supporting Role" for Espen Skjønberg.
In spite of good critical reception, the film did not perform very well at the box office, with only about 35,000 tickets sold domestically. Hamer expressed some disappointment with this, while hoping that the DVD-release would fare better. Internationally, the film did somewhat better, and was sold to forty countries. By early August 2009, the film had in fact been seen by more people in the United States than in Norway.
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