IMDb plot summary: A teacher lives a lonely life, all the while struggling over his son's custody. His life slowly gets better as he finds love and receives good news from his son, but his new luck is about to be brutally shattered by an innocent little lie.
Directed by Thomas Vinterberg. Starring Mads Mikkelsen, Thomas Bo Larsen, Annika Wedderkopp, and Lasse Fogelstrøm.
Although this is an interesting premise for a movie, it doesn't come together very well. People's actions, especially in the second half, didn't seem to stem from previous actions or motivations we'd been shown, and changes in behavior seemed oddly abrupt. In a really good drama, I'm able to just watch as the story unfolds, and everything that happens feels like, well, yes, of course, in hindsight, that makes sense that that would happen. Here, I found myself struggling to make sense of the characters' interactions from scene to scene. I did like the final scene, as it provided what I felt was a much more realistic lingering reaction to the events of the movie. Overall, though, this was very disappointing. 2 stars.
Flickchart: #1195 out of 2020, below Fargo and above Einstein and Eddington. This feels like too high a ranking, but I'm not sure what's out of place.
Rent it on Amazon for $3.99.
1 comment:
Aww, I'm bummed you didn't like this more. It was one of my favorites of the year. I did want to burn that entire town to the ground by the end of it though.
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