A very good movie

I always had a weak spot for Scandinave movies and Susanne Bier must be one of the best Danish directors at work nowadays so I was definitely eager to check this movie, especially since it won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film of the Year. Eventually, Bier delivered once again a very strong drama and probaby one of her best movies so far. Once again, her directing was quite beautiful and she managed to get some very good performances from her cast, especially from those two boys who were both quite impressive. Indeed, the relationship between those teenagers was the best thing in this flick, how they were both messed up for some reasons, how they bond with each other and how they got into some massive trouble together. To be honest, the other storylines didn’t work very well though. For example, as it was justly pointed out by Roger Ebert, the whole African section, which was solid on its own with some rather unsettling and heartbreaking moments, didn’t fit very well with the rest. That’s the whole issue, it was actually too good to be a side-plot, they could have developed a whole story around this Swedish doctor working in Africa. Still, even though it wasn’t flawless, I really enjoyed this flick and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre.

8/10