QUEEN OF HEARTS: Trine Dyrholm stars in Denmark's entry into the BFLF sweeps

If you'll recall, the QUEEN OF HEARTS -- at least in the famous Lewis Carroll tale which the three leading characters in this eponymously-named film take turns reading to a set of pretty young twins -- is perhaps most remembered for constantly shouting "Off with his head!" This is worth noting, since that romantic-sounding title might put you in mind of various rom-coms you've seen over the years. That this film, directed and co-written by May el-Toukhy (shown below), is Scandinavian, however, might re-direct you into darker territory.

And though we are not talking an Ingmar Bergman-level of serious filmmaking here, the movie is perhaps the darkest example of the lives of the Scandinavian haute bourgeoisie to be seen in quite some time. Queen of Hearts is Denmark's entry into the newly titled Best International Feature Film category (formerly called the Best Foreign Language Film), and as such would be expected to deliver some prestige goods. It does -- and then some.

TrustMovies would be pleased to see the film arrive on the Academy's shortlist of nine movies considered for this award, perhaps even rising to become one of the five nominees. Yet it is such an incredibly dark film that I rather think an embrace by the entire Academy may prove difficult.

Queen of Hearts deals with an older woman's affair with her husband's son from a former marriage, and if your mind, as did mine when I heard this plot hook, moved into Phaedra territory or that of any number of melodramatic movies made around this theme, think again. That the older woman is played by one of the Denmark's finest actresses, Trine Dyrholm (shown above and below, and recently seen here in Becoming Astrid and Nico, 1988), only makes the movie even more of a must-see, and Ms Dyrholm plays each moment to its max without ever overdoing.

There is a single unnecessary scene of tears -- that perhaps indicates some sort of repentance but comes across as too easy -- meant to humanize our non-heroine; otherwise the movie is spot-on emotionally and psychologically. It is at its finest at the very moment when other films would take that melodramatic/soap-operatic turn. Instead this one offers up a gut punch unlike any we've experienced.

The other two leading roles -- Magnus Krepper (above, left, as the husband/father and Gustav Lindh (below) as the son -- are equally fine, the former caring but distant, the latter caring and all too present. Likewise the supporting roles all add to the specificity and believability of the scenario.

I can't go into more of the plot maneuvering without giving away genuine spoilers. Suffice it to say that this unusual character study takes you places you have not been and may not care to go. Once you've made the trip, however, it'll burn itself onto your memory.

Distributed via Breaking Glass Pictures, in Danish and Swedish with English subtitles and running 123 minutes, Queen of Hearts opens theatrically this Friday, November 1 -- in New York City at the Cinema Village and in the Los Angeles area at Laemmle's Glendale. 

BECOMING ASTRID: Pernille Fischer Christensen's smart, lively, moving bio-pic of the early years of a famous Swedish writer

The name Astrid Lindgren (1907-2002) will probably be less recognizable to many literate Americans than is that of one of her heroines, Pippi Longstocking. Pippi, together with other of Lindgren's protagonists, fueled some of the most popular children's books in the history of print. (The author, whose combined works have now sold more than 165,000,000 copies, is also said to be the fourth most translated writer of children's books in the world.)

Interestingly enough, BECOMING ASTRID, the new film about the late-teenage/early-adult years of Ms Lindgren directed and co-written by Pernille Fischer Christensen, is anything but a "children's story" -- even though a child figures very heavily into things.

Ms Christensen (pictured at right) tells a tale, which sticks somewhat closely to factual accounts, of the young girl from a highly religious family/community who clearly has a talent for writing, as well as a need to be independent, even though the means to that state is anything but easy.

The movie is a quite fascinating blend of the dark and sad, and yet it is at the same time relatively easy to enjoy, thanks to the well-rounded characters on view -- no real villains (unless you count organized religion itself), nor even a pristine heroine to be found here -- and to the excellent performance of literally every actor on view.

Front and center is the exceptional young actress Alba August, above (the daughter of director Bille August and actress Pernilla August), who plays Astrid and who easily moves from naive teen to fledgling reporter to worldy-wise mother in the course of this two-hour film.

How and why she chooses this difficult road is told with urgency and understanding by Ms Christensen and her co-writer Kim Fupz Aakeson, as the story moves from Sweden to Denmark and back again, involving the editor of the local newspaper (a fine job from Henrik Rafaelsen, above, left) and his family, Astrid's life in the big-city workplace (that's her boss, played with sly intelligence and humor by Björn Gustafsson, below), and finally a surrogate mom (the wonderful Trine Dyrholm, seen only recently as Nico).

The choice to concentrate on these early years, rather than on how Lindgren achieved her initial success, was a smart one, and the movie also chooses a pleasing but subtle introduction and finale (below), during which the now famous and aging author, on her birthday, listens to tapes and reads letters from her young fans.

This quickly and firmly establishes who she is and why she's important. When one of the youngsters asks how she is able to so completely understand the sometimes fraught and frightening world of childhood, the movie moves immediately to enmesh us in her own earlier years.

Young Ms August brings to the role enormous vitality, as well as an understanding of the pitfalls that go hand in hand with brash youth and teenage rebellion. Consequently, though we always wish her well, we do cringe and wonder at a few of her choices. This gives the movie more reality, together with a certain surprising frisson -- both of which many other conventional bio-pics lack.

When at last we meet the little boy who will prove so pivotal to Astrid's life and who takes his place as increasingly all-important, the movie reaches its emotional height -- and stays there through the conclusion. Fans of this super-popular author will certainly be hooked. But so, too, TrustMovies suspects, will be even those who know little about Ms Lindgren. The film is that compelling and well-executed.

From Music Box Films and running 123 minutes, Becoming Astrid opens in New York City (at Film Forum), Los Angeles (at Laemmle's Royal) and Minneapolis (at Landmark's Lagoon Cinema) tomorrow, Friday, November 22, and will then spread across the country in the weeks to come. Here in South Florida, look for it on Friday, November 30, at the MDC Tower Theater in Miami. To view all currently scheduled playdates, cities and theaters, click here then scroll down and click on Theatrical Engagements.

THE SQUARE: Ruben Östlund's Cannes winner boldly explores the western world's hypocrisy

OK. Ruben Östlund may indeed be something of a smartypants (as certain reviewers would have you believe), but the "smart" part of that word Mr. Östlund possesses in spades. If Force Majeure and now THE SQUARE are any indication, this fellow is a bold, inventive and creative filmmaker who knows what he wants to say and how to deliver it in an entertaining, surprising, thought-provoking fashion. Anyone who can keep me (not to mention my often less-than-easy-moviegoing spouse) glued to the screen for two-and-one-half hours, as he does with this latest endeavor, and make it feel like maybe only as long as a 90-minute movie, has my vote.

To my mind, what Östlund, shown at right, is doing here is nothing less than indicting today's western society for all its many and major sins. He tackles everything from the art world and its big-money benefactors to family values, PR/marketing, feminism, free speech, the masculine ego, political correctness and more. And nobody gets off the hook: not the wealthy, the poor or those in between. That he does all this while situating his film in Sweden -- one of several Scandinavian countries long known for their progressive, forward-looking, pro-people values -- makes the indictment all the more powerful. And maybe more difficult to accept. Setting the film in the USA would have been too easy, particularly these days. But handing it to us from one of the countries many of us so admire is really rubbing-it-the-fuck-in.

The filmmaker's main character (played by the suddenly memorable Danish actor Claes Bang, above) is named, and probably not coincidentally, Christian, and he's the head of a popular and prestigious art museum where he is planning a new and important show. Divorced but also a reasonably caring father of two girls, he is first shown to us waking up from a nap and having to do yet another interview with a journalist. Then later, on his way to work, when someone (a woman, it sounds like) screams for help but no one immediately comes to her aid, Christian and one other fellow do. From there, surprise topples upon surprise and we are soon utterly hooked.

The Sweden we see here -- from the art museum to the marketing firm who handles its needs, to the poor who beg, and the folk who (mostly) don't pay attention to them -- is expectedly, maybe wonderfully diverse. Pets and children are welcomed in a workplace where women have risen to (or very near) the top. Much of the society we see here is just as we might want it -- but so seldom get it.

And yet, humanity's penchant for hypocrisy keeps spurting out like the cum that fills Christian's condom (post-sex with that journalist, played by the marvelously reliable and increasingly versatile Elizabeth Moss, above), the laying-to-rest of which becomes one of the film's funniest and most provocative set pieces.

The museum's dinner for its benefactors, together with the entertainment provided (above), is another of these. But perhaps the most special and incisive continuing thread throughout the movie pertains to stolen property, all that goes into its retrieval, and the unintended consequences that follow.

How Östlund threads it all together, while making us laugh and wince and drop our jaw is simply a marvel. And to those who call the film, as did The New York Times' A.O. Scott, "complacent, craven and clueless," I can only wonder if they are demanding something sweeter and more humane. Not here, buddy. Human, yes, you'll get plenty of that. And if you do not find some, maybe much, of your own behavior mirrored here (if you are man or woman enough to admit it, that is), I shall be very surprised.

From Magnolia Pictures and running an amazingly swift 152 minutes, The Square opened in the cultural centers a week or so back and hits South Florida this Friday, November 10, in the Miami area at both the Tower Theater and the Miami Beach Cinematheque, as well as elsewhere around the country. Wherever you live, click here to find the theater(s) nearest you.

Back to the 70s in Thomas Vinterberg's surprising period piece, THE COMMUNE

If you are expecting here -- because Thomas Vinterberg's new film, THE COMMUNE, takes place in and around one of those experiments in communal living that were popular in Scandinavia back in the 1970s -- something akin to another internationally popular Scandinavian movie about "community," Lucas Moodysson's Together,  better reset your sites. That earlier (2001) and quite funny/charming film was much more a rom-com-dramedy that this new effort. Oh, there are some laughs, all right, and romance (of sorts), too. But this is altogether a darker, deeper and more unsettling -- as we've come to expect from Mr. Vinterberg, who earlier gave us The Hunt and The Celebration -- look at the, ummm, "joys" of communal life.

The filmmaker, pictured at left, who co-wrote (with Tobias Lindholm) and directed the movie, wants to explore, as he always does, things like motive, need, and in this case especially, marriage and the male prerogative as middle age occurs.

While The Commune is indeed an ensemble film, that ensemble is clearly led by the couple -- played very well indeed by two fine Danish actors, Trine Dyrholm (shown below) and Ulrich Thomsen (two photos down). In fact, the movie mostly belongs to Ms Dyrholm's wife, Anna, who initially pushes her husband, Erik, into this new communal living and then lives to regret it.

As a dissection of marriage of a couple entering middle age -- exploring everything from their respective careers to their lovemaking and the psychology of their various behaviors -- the movie is first-rate, pulling no punches nor sugar-coating a thing.

Set in the 70s, when both feminism and greater sexual freedom for all were coming into vogue, the movie still makes quite clear the ways in which men act and women adapt. The new commune is born mostly because Erik feels that he, Anna and their teenage daughter, Freja (a terrific performance from newcomer, Martha Sofie Wallstrøm Hansen, below, who, if she wants to continue this career should probably shorten that name a tad) cannot afford to live in the large "family" house he has just inherited.

As the commune grows, we get a nice mixture of characters and types, the arrival of whom provides the movie with much of its humor, and then some surprise and unexpected drama. Leading the little group is an actor of whom TrustMovies grows increasingly fond: Fares Fares (at left, below), who did such a fine job playing second fiddle in the recent Department Q trilogy and made worthwhile appearances in two of the Easy Money movies.

Other members include the initial couple's best friend, along with a sweet, trouble pair and their little son, who turns out to not be quite as healthy as we earlier imagined, and finally a newcomer (Helene Reingaard Neumann, below, right) who can perhaps be called a "marriage destroyer." Or maybe not.

Because of Vinterberg's astute handling of everything from psychology and sexual roles to guilt and responsibility, this marriage, as we discover, has most likely long been in trouble. As with so many of our lives, it simply takes some shaking up to bring out the truth of things.

From Magnolia Pictures, running 111 minutes, and in Danish with English subtitles, The Commune opens this coming Friday, May 19, in Los Angeles area (at Laemmle's Royal, Noho 7 and Playhouse 7) and New York City (at the Lincoln Plaza Cinema and Landmark's Sunshine) and will spread out to another dozen cities in the weeks to come. Click here to see all currently scheduled playdates.

Roar Uthaug's THE WAVE: a swift, smart tsunami blockbuster made for 6-1/2 million

Eat your heart out, Hollywood. For almost 17 times the budget of the excellent Norwegian special-effects thriller, THE WAVE,  Hollywood managed to give us last year's CGI-crammed blockbuster, San Andreas. Yes, those special effects were good -- if still problematic because of the far-too-high-def quality that the best CGI often provides -- but the story, writing and direction all seemed typical, obvious and, well, second rate. When set against this relatively little (though certainly big-budgeted for any Scandinavian country) film, thanks to its tight plotting, smart dialog and the kind of realistic performances that pull you in and make you care about the protagonists, the silly time-honored coincidences and last-minutes "saves" of San Andreas seem mostly ridiculous.

Director Roar Uthaug (shown at right) knows how to set up his situation for maximum potential: a family man about to leave his job as geologist and protector of a popular tourist town in the Norwegian fjords suddenly grows worried about the seismic activity in the area. Sure enough, some-thing bad is afoot, and it will take every bit of his strength and endurance to save his family, friends and coworkers (below) from a watery grave.

Not everyone does get saved, by the way, and how all this happens -- quickly, sometimes shockingly -- provides surprise, occasional humor, and a larger, more jolting dose of deep feeling than you find in most movies of this popular genre.

The leading players seem drawn from a real family, just as does our hero (Kristoffer Joner, above) and his co-workers, all of whom appear as savvy geologists. The screenplay wastes little time on anything not germane to either the family, the crisis or the post-crisis (and even more disturbing) outcome.

The special effects provide everything that is called for, and while they are used quickly and rather sparingly, when compared to what we get from our home-grown product, they work all too well, providing fright and shock aplenty. And filmmaker Uthaug knows how to ratchet the suspense to keep us on those proverbial tenterhooks. Yet nothing seems to go on too long. (The film lasts but 104 minutes, considerably shorter than most of our versions of the disaster blockbuster.)

From Magnolia Pictures, The Wave opens all across the country this Friday, March 4, and will reach even more cities and theaters in the weeks to come. (Click here to view all playdates, cities and theater scheduled so far.) The movie is everywhere, in fact, except down here in Florida. Maybe the distributor feels it would be just too much for us coastal folk. So I guess Floridians will have to wait for DVD and streaming.

WE ARE THE BEST! Lukas Moodysson gets back on track with an energizing paean to adolescence

After his prolonged visit to the dark and dismal side -- Lilya 4-ever, A Hole in My Heart, the odd but at least short Container and finally the bottom-of-the-barrel Mammoth -- Lukas Moodysson bounces back with the kind of movie in which he first made waves (Show Me Love, Together). His new one is titled WE ARE THE BEST! and for once that exclamation point is not de trop. This tale -- of two young girls (from the looks of it, they're middle-school age) who form a "girl band" with literally no experience to back them up, and the third girl they bring in who actually plays an instrument -- is so full of vitality and life bursting from its seams that, from the first few frames, you're smiling and hooked.

I am not sure what it was that sent Mr. Moodysson (at left) to the brink of despair (with, I must add, little natural talent to bring this despair to anything but tired, pile-it-on-with-a-shovel storytelling), but it is awfully good to have him back where it would appear he belongs. That would entail giving us a lighthearted but quite real look at Scandinavian kids in Stockholm circa the 1980s. They're distinctive, maybe a little too "different" and somewhat troubled by their family situation or how they're treated at school, yet they're able to handle this via friendship and Scandinavian culture ("Democracy," as somebody in the movie smartly notes).

As played by Mira Barkhammar (Bobo, above center), Mira Grosin (Klara, at right) and Liv LeMoyne (Hedvig, at left), they're as genuine as they are delightful -- and as enjoyable to spend time with as any kid characters I've seen on film since those in The Way Way Back.

As directed and co-adapted by Moodysson, from his wife Coco's comic book, the movie simply sails along full-speed from scene to funny scene -- none of which go for any over-the-top laughs. But the film'll still keep a smile on your face all the way through.

Scene after scene works beautifully -- bonding over a cut on the hand, the "religious" discussion, the haircut, the food fight, the punk boy band the girls meet and go all gooey over -- and in this case, as usual, it's a male who screws things up a bit.

Especially fine are the scenes detailing how the girls first imagine becoming a band and then begin to think up a song and lyrics. All this is smart and amusing and quite believable, too. This may be lightweight stuff, wrapped in a nice time capsule, but there's hardly a more enjoyable hundred minutes of movie viewing currently available.

We Are the Best! -- from Magnolia Pictures -- opens this Friday, May 30, in New York City at the film centers Angelika and Elinor Bunin Munroe, in West Los Angeles at the NuArt, and across Canada in Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver. In the weeks to come it'll play all across the USA. To see currently scheduled playdates, click here.

Babak Najafi's EASY MONEY: HARD TO KILL proves that rare sequel to outshine its originator

Dark, action-packed, fast-paced and all too believable, EASY MONEY: HARD TO KILL is better than the original -- from which, if you recall my coverage of that earlier and overpraised twaddle, you might not expect much. Yet this sequel indeed delivers the goods you'll want from a smart, tight crime thriller -- Scandinavian variety. Interestingly enough, the sequel simply carries right on from the point at which the former film ended: with much of the cast dead, dying or injured and our near-hero caught by the authorities.

The difference, it seems, lies in the choice of director and co-writer, Babak Najafi, who outshines the filmmaker of the original (Daniél Espinosa) by leaps and bounds, sticking to immediate action and character over tired (and, as it turns out, unnecessary) history, love and class clichés, and making that fast action coincide with character. The hints Najafi gives us of background and history proves better than the lengthy and obvious scenes used by Espinosa -- and thankfully there is nothing here nearly as silly as the chase-by-city-bus scene, followed by the even worse "Oh, look, I've just conveniently found a gun here in the bushes!" moment. My spouse, who watched the movie with me and had not seen the original, found it completely understandable and utterly riveting. I felt the same, while also realizing how well Part Two builds from Part One. (Part Three, with yet a new director/co-writer on board, has apparently already been released in Scandinavia and The Netherlands, so we'll eventually see how this crime tale trio turns out.)

Picking up from the end of Part One, EM: H2K finds JW (the lean and lovely Joel Kinnaman, above, who is just debuting today as the new Robocop) in prison for his offenses but getting a day out of the can for good behavior. A smartypants computer maven, he's been working on new software that will be a real boon to the banking industry.

Not only is there little honor among thieves of the hardened criminal variety, JW's wealthy partner is bereft of same, too, and soon our poor, fish-out-of-water boy is once more involved in something illegal via one of the men he earlier helped put in prison (not to mention in a wheelchair), and so JW is on the run again.

Both parts of Easy Money have involved a slew of characters, with three especially important: our foolish but relatively decent JW; the petty criminal, Jorge (Matias Varela, above); and a higher-up-in-the-criminal food-chain, Mrado (Dragomir Mrsic, below).

This time another character, Mahmoud (played by Fares Fares, below and on the receiving end of that gun), up to his ears in criminal debt, takes on more importance. All four men are striving to find a place for themselves and/or provide for their families: JW tries to rise above his lower-class roots, while the other three are immigrants from various places. None has managed to join the "mainstream," and while the movie makes clear Scandinavia's forward-looking stance on immigration, it also shows how difficult it can be for immigrants, once resident in their new country, to be able to truly "join" it. Consequently, being all-too human, our fellows end up thrashing about in crime and betrayal, while trying to do the right thing -- occasionally, at least.

Women are kept to a minimum in this chapter of the trilogy, and the movie is better for it. The one important female character is another immigrant, a young woman (an excellent Madeleine Martin, below, left) bound by sex trafficking and her nasty captors, who makes a move for freedom at precisely the time when one of our men is about to be eliminated. While this is indeed coincidental, the scene is handled so well that you'll barely have time to draw a breath.

In fact, timing, pacing, and characters who are both interesting and believable, along with all the rest that go into making a good crime thriller, are here and used to their utmost, without rubbing anything in. Mr. Najafi knows his stuff, and I hope we'll see more from him, even if he isn't directing the third installment.

Meanwhile, this one -- running 99 minutes and coming to us via the increasingly interesting and necessary distributor Cinedigm, which has made a lot of good choices of late -- opens Friday, February 14, in New York City at the Cinema Village. Elsewhere theatrically? No idea. But you can, simultaneous with its theatrical release, view it via iTunes and many local VOD platforms.