Larry Oliver Film Reviews

  Contains spoilers Written by National Film and Television School, Beaconsfield graduate Ingeborg Tops ø e and directed by Jeanette N ø rdahl, Wildland (original title K ø d & Blod , meaning ‘Flesh and Blood’) is a gripping rural Danish drama about the corrupting ties of family. When her mother dies in a car crash, seventeen-year-old Ida (Sandra Guldberg Kampp) is taken in by her aunt, Bodil (Sidse Babett Knudsen). Bodil lives with two out of three of her adult sons, Jonas (Joachim Fjeldstrup) and Mads (Besir Zeciri) as well as Jonas’ wife, Marie (Sofie Torp) and Jonas and Marie’s baby daughter. She runs a bar, nice enough but hardly heaving with customers. She also lends money. In her house, the children are expected to collect, though Jonas prefers to sit in the car. When David (Elliott Crosset), the less than prodigal son, who has had a drug problem in the past, returns home with his sometime girlfriend, Anna (Carla Philip R ø der), the debt collection business, which is ...

  Again: what sort of woman sleeps with both a  man and his teenage son in the same house? In her second feature, Queen of Hearts ( Dronningen ) co-written by Maren Louise Kaehne, Egyptian-Danish writer-director May el-Toukhy addresses the same question as Eliza Petkova’s film, A Fish Swimming Upside Down with a near identical outcome. Here though the woman in question, Anne (Trine Dyrholm in a fearsomely committed central performance) is a successful lawyer who specialises in defending children. By her own admission, Anne doesn’t have any friends. Her father has died. She doesn’t visit her mother. She is however close to her sister, Lina (Stine Gyldenkerne) who varnishes Anne’s nails and is separated from the father of her young mixed-race son, Lucas (Noel Bouhon Kiertzner). Anne and her doctor husband, Peter (Magnus Krepper) have twin daughters, Frida and Fanny (twin sisters Liv and Silja Esm å r Dannemann). Their family expands when Peter brings his teenage son, Gustav...

Pictured :  Lea ( Marie Helweg Augustsen , right) submits to lipstick in a scene from the Danish wellness camp drama, ' Vægtløs ' (' Weightless '), written by Marianne Lentz and directed by Emilie Thalund . Still courtesy of Snowglobe (Denmark) The Danish drama, Weightless ( Vægtløs ) is ninety minutes of compelling teenage anxiety, telling the entirely relatable story of teenager Lea (Marie Helweg Augustsen) who spends her summer at a camp for obese children. Points are awarded for participation in physical exercise. Lunches are prescribed in ‘T’ rather than ‘Y’ formats, the proportion of meat to vegetables. However, the teenagers aren’t thinking about losing kilograms. They just want to be loved, being more affection than weight challenged. The debut feature of director Emilie Thalund, working from a script by Marianne Lentz, Weightless is distinguished by naturalistic performances, handheld camerawork and a narrative in which boundaries are crossed. While threaten...