The film's themes include an ambivalence towards America and Americans, poverty and the accompanying social stigma, superstition and the spirit world, and a destructive family dynamic. The sound-track combines American pop (some of it performed in Icelandic) and a score by Hilmar Örn Hilmarsson.
The film opened at number one at the Icelandic box office and went on to be the highest-grossing Icelandic film of all time and the second highest-grossing film in Iceland behind Titanic with a gross of 55 million Icelandic króna ($770,000) from 75,000 admissions.[1]