Truth be told, I was a little bjored at “Fjord.”

Movies about Scandinavia can have that anesthetizing effect, with their monotonous, stone-faced conversations and cultural aversion to openly expressed emotion. Those herring lovers enjoy nothing more than blankly staring out at the, well, fjord. 

But Romanian director Cristian Mungiu’s Palme d’Or-winning movie with Oscar buzz now at the Toronto International Film Festival has an enticingly controversial set-up: a local Norwegian government takes away a Christian family’s five kids after teachers spot two bruises on a young girl’s arm.

Reasonable, right? Not so fast. There are other possible causes of the injuries. She’s wrestling in gym class, for instance, and the neighbors’ daughter has been pushing teen Elia (Vanessa Ceban) and her brother Emmanuel (Jonathan Ciprian Breazu) to jump out of their bedroom window for kicks. 

Yet the authorities in the proudly progressive town don’t bother to pursue those other theories, so distrusting of the non-traditional parents they are. 

Even the kids are antagonized by intolerant adults. When Elia casually plucks out “Amazing Grace” on the piano in a classroom, her frigid teacher has the gall to say, “We don’t do evangelizing in school.” Sheesh.

And locals are appalled that the Gheorghiu children aren’t allowed to listen to modern music or watch YouTube, as if that alone is tantamount to abuse. Isn’t what they do at home their parents’ decision? An American’s view on these debates will likely differ from a European’s. 

From my perspective, though, Mungiu’s mostly balanced film, set in an extremely depressing enclave by the sea in Norway, largely sides with the Christians, played by Sebastian Stan and Renate Reinsve. Shocking! Movies tend to wag their fingers at religious types, not sympathize with or attempt to understand them. 

But this also isn’t a “Doubt” or an “Anatomy of a Fall” where we’re never quite sure if the accused actually did the deed. There’s no mystery here to hold our attention, only discourse. 

Strict dad Mihai (Stan) readily admits he’s slapped his kids on the rear sometimes, and mom Lisbet (Reinsve) swatted her eldest girl’s arm away when she nearly scalded the baby on accident with hot liquid. They insist this is merely a cultural divide, or at worst a spontaneous reaction. 

Should all five of their kids be taken away and put into foster care over that?

Mungiu respects his audience enough to let them decide for themselves who’s in the right as they watch the situation unravel. And they could very well leave without a definite answer. I only wish it unraveled quicker, more compellingly and less repetitiously. Academically I was stimulated by the film’s arguments, but it didn’t get under my skin. The neurons were firing, but the blood wasn’t flowing.

“Fjord,” which Mungiu also wrote, plateaus midway through, long before a trial in the most stunning courtroom of all time is meant to liven things up. It doesn’t really, despite the prosecutor’s string of nasty insults. 

The couple’s lawyer is their neighbor Mia (Lisa Carlehed), the only person around who will listen to them.  

Carlehed’s performance is one of the few gentle ones in a story of jagged people, though a subplot with her elder father-in-law Ake (Øyvind Venstad Kjeksrud) is extraneous padding. He’s there seemingly to restate how much this place sucks. Believe me, we already know.

Reinsve is superb as usual. She was Oscar-nominated, of course, for last year’s Norway-set “Sentimental Value.” However, Lisbet is far removed from that urbane eccentric — she’s meek, upright and rather joyless. What Reinsve brings to her is sensitivity and palpable love.  

As for Stan, every time a new role of his is announced you wonder if he lost a bet. In a few short years he’s played a man with a genetic disorder that causes tumors to grow all over his face, a young Donald Trump, Tommy Lee and Bucky Barnes. The parts are all so different, and each time he fully conceals himself beneath them.

Stern, soft-spoken and bald Mihai is another impressive transformation. The actor is completely convincing as a Romanian father fighting to tamp down his seething anger as he battles the cold-hearted citizens of freezing Norway. 

He’s a winter soldier!