Sunday, September 18, 2011

To verdener (Worlds Apart) (2008)

Worlds Apart is a based on a true story about a devout 17-year-old Jehovah’s Witness and the choice that will define her future.

Worlds ApartSara (Rosalind Spanning) and her family are zealous in their faith. When her parents separate, they ask Sara and her young siblings, Elisabeth (Sarah Juel Werner) and August (Jacob Ottensten), to decide which parent will leave the family home. Around the same time, Sara meets older Teis (Pilou Asbæk). While they clash over her religious beliefs, they spar intelligently. His counterpoints ring some truth within her. They start dating. When her father and the church elders get wind of it, they urge Sara to get rid of him; Teis asks her to rethink it. Her older brother Jonas (Thomas Knuth-Winterfeldt) has already been shunned and it has destroyed him; Sara wants to avoid that fate. She hatches a plan to appease everyone, but it won’t be easy.

Worlds Apart is about painful decisions. Because it takes its time unfolding, you behold Sara’s sorrow and suffering. Her agony is palpable. In the end, everyone loses here. Worlds Apart injects you into this fractured family, torn apart by the very thing around which they’ve centered themselves. The Danish make beautifully deep movies and this is no exception.

Co-writer/Director: Niels Arden Oplev

Country: Denmark

Genre: Drama

Run time: 115 minutes

Scale: 4.5

No comments: