Anne clings on to her mask of professionalism with almost sociopathic, yet deeply convincing, tenacity. “Why should anyone believe you? You’re not credible, you don’t have a case,” she tells him. When he comes to Anne’s office, determined to report her if she won’t tell his father about their affair, she turns her usual advice to rape victims on its head. Still, you feel that his affection for them is genuine, which makes it even more chilling when Anne, realising that the life she's built is in jeopardy (her sister, who sees Gustav kissing her at the twins’ birthday party, refuses to speak to Anne afterwards), is able to end their affair with such calculating froideur. It’s touching to see his relationship with his adoring little step-sisters develop, though this only happens after Anne agrees not to tell Peter that Gustav, rather than a burglar, trashed the house, as long as he makes an effort to take part in family life. Gustav is a convincing blend of teenage bravado, honesty and vulnerability. She tells him, “Letting real life into our home won’t harm them,” and it’s clear that she’s used to winning arguments. He wants the twins to be protected from her job. Like Gustav, she’s a loner – her best friend is her sister – and there may have been abuse in her past.Įarly on, we see that she has issues with boundaries: her young clients sometimes end up spending the night at the family home, to Peter’s disapproval. But we’re thrown enough hints to understand that her successful middle-class life and career are hard won. She’s certainly going the right way about making sure it does. “Sometimes what happens and what must never happen are the same thing,” Anne tells Gustav cryptically.Īnd although Anne’s motivations, apart from being turned on by the sounds of Gustav having sex with a girl he's brought home, aren’t entirely clear – she herself says in a question-and-answer game with Gustav (he likes to play around with his dad’s old tape-recorder) that she is terrified “that everything will disappear”. But the strangeness and depth of Dyrholm’s and Lindh’s characters and Jasper J Spanning’s wonderfully atmospheric cinematography rescue it from cliché. He soon gets under it).Īnd dancing drunkenly to “Tainted Love” at a dinner party while her husband and friends look on indifferently is a bit on the obvious – and icky – side. This gripping erotic drama, directed by May el-Toukhy with wonderful performances from all, is sometimes in danger of slipping over into posh soap, or soft-core porn, territory: a middle-aged woman with a wardrobe of high heels and tasteful trousers wants to rekindle her self-esteem and relive her youth with some wild, risky, taboo sex (Gustav even gives her arm tattoos, telling her, “It’s just skin”. Soon after, with apparently little regard for consequences, Anne, a powerful lawyer who specialises in defending young victims of rape and abuse, embarks on a steamy – as well as predatory and abusive – affair with her stepson. They're giving him a second chance – he was kicked out of several schools and his mother in Sweden wants to send him to boarding school. Her marriage to Peter (Magnus Krepper), a hard-working, often absent doctor, appears solid enough until Gustav (Gustav Lindh), his difficult teenage son from a previous marriage, moves in with them. The Alice-down-the-well analogy could apply to Anne herself. Either the well was very deep, or she fell very slowly, for she had plenty of time as she went down to look about her and to wonder what was going to happen next.” A cosy scene: Anne (the superb Trine Dyrholm: The Legacy The Commune Nico, 1988) is reading Alice in Wonderland to her twin daughters in their stylish Danish family house deep in the woods.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |