En soap (A Soap) (2006)

En soap has a black-humored backbone. Think Transamerica’s darker Danish cousin.

Salon owner Charlotte (Trine Dyrholm) absconds from the home she shares with her boyfriend Kristian (Frank Thiel). She gives him no warning and does it while he’s out of town. She brings to her new pad few possessions and little furniture. The voiceover narration tells us she is bored but does Charlotte have deeper issues? (Yes) Is she a sex addict? (Likely) Is she seeking a feeling that eludes her? (Definitely) Has she found it in Veronica? (All signs point to yes.)

Downstairs neighbor Veronica (David Dencik) is a male-to-female trans woman waiting for approval for her sex-change surgery from the health ministry. She leads a solitary life with Miss Daisy, her scruffy Jack Russell mix. She brings in cash turning tricks with men in her apartment. Her mother (Elsebeth Steentoft) stops by regularly but never for very long. She brings Veronica pâtés and pills and refers to her as Ulrik, much to Veronica's chagrin. Their mutual discomfort is palpable; each wants something the other won’t give. The family patriarch (whom we never meet) is the source of distress to Veronica (who wants to reach out and have him acknowledge her) and to Veronica's mother (who lies to her husband/Veronica’s father about having visited Veronica). After an emotionally trying visit with her dismissive and disappointing mother, Veronica attempts suicide.

When Miss Daisy’s barking, whining and whimpering keeps upstairs neighbor Charlotte awake, she charges downstairs and bangs on Veronica's door. It opens and Miss Daisy leads her to Veronica's bed where she is lifeless in her own puke. Veronica is taken to the hospital and Charlotte watches Miss Daisy. When Veronica returns and fetches her dog, she offers to return the favor.

Charlotte is brusque and offensive to Veronica. Charlotte engages in sex with random guys. She’s uninterested in anything steady or long term. Around Veronica, she’s vulnerable and unguarded and then, Charlotte lashes out and backs off. They play cat and mouse as their chemistry intensifies. Charlotte is taken with Veronica; Veronica is curious about Charlotte. Charlotte grapples with her feelings. Her defenses crack open, especially with the impending final chapter of Veronica’s transition.

Neither is filmed outside the two apartments: Charlotte’s is sparse and bright. Veronica’s is dark and cramped. Veronica introduces Charlotte to a soap opera. Through it, Charlotte gains an understanding about Veronica and the love and acceptance she seeks. There’s a great scene where the two declare themselves boozy lightweights and get their drink on. They dance to “You Take My Breath Away” by The Knife. I loved their moves, their expressions, the moment.

En soap is depressing, leaves a lot unturned but offers hope and longing. We watch the two characters journey and grow closer. Most of their intense feelings are conveyed without words, instead using expressions, silent reactions and subtext. Both actors are expressive and possess a sensitivity that makes this movie work.

Co-writer/Director: Pernille Fischer Christensen

Country: Denmark

Genre: Drama

Run time: 104 minutes

Scale: 4

Hævnen (In a Better World) (2010)

Danish director Susanne Bier starts Hævnen with a father and son in mourning, following the death of the family matriarch.

Following the funeral, pre-teen Christian (William Jøhnk Nielsen) and his father Claus (Ulrich Thomsen) relocate to Denmark from London. Claus will commute to London while Claus’s mother watches Christian.

On his first day at school, Christian witnesses a peer being bullied by a group of much bigger boys. The bullied boy Elias (Markus Rygaard) ends up in Christian’s class. The two learn they share a birthday, sit together and begin a friendship. After school, the bullies await Elias. Christian calmly comes to his rescue, gets a basketball pummeled at his face and ends up with a bloody mess of a nose. He goes home, escapes into his shoot-‘em-up video game. He tells his father nothing as their fractured relationship continues to worsen.

Christian returns to wield revenge and send a message to his opportunistic bullies. The school calls in Christian’s dad and Elias’s mother Marianne (Trine Dyrholm) who is upset; the school hasn’t done anything to keep her son safe from bullying and now they are accusing him of conspiring against the bully. Elias’s father Anton (Mikael Persbrandt) works abroad in Africa as a doctor in a refugee camp and is gone for long periods. He’s a pacifist and it has rubbed off on Elias who until Christian’s intervention took the violence.

On one of Anton’s visits back, he takes Elias and Christian into town. Anton gets into an altercation with a man at a park. The man lashes out at Anton. Christian seethes at the injustice and disrespect. He urges Anton to exact revenge. Anton explains that remaining calm is the right way; that peace wins in the face of violence, much the way he conducts himself against the barbarity he witnesses in Africa.

Christian cannot accept it. Already struggling with his mother’s death and feelings about his father’s behavior during her illness, his rage explodes and pushes him toward irreparable violence.

The movie examines the effects of bullying on friendships, relationships between fathers and sons, the expectations of men in society and interplay between bullies and victims. Bier is a master of digging deeply into the messy swamp of people’s compulsions, fears and desires. The acting is terrific, especially from the two young leads. Elias displays the emotive side of fear and confusion, while Christian portrays the middle-aged seething at life’s injustices from the perspective of a young man.

Director: Susanne Bier

Country: Denmark

Genre: Drama

Run time: 118 minutes

Scale: 4

Eavesdropper: Patient 14 (2004)

This is the worst movie I’ve seen in a long time. Awful acting, no genuine affinity between characters and a convoluted storyline round out the problems in this cinematic mess.

Liza (Lucy Jenner) loses her hearing during a tragic shooting. Her life downward spirals and she ends up in a homeless shelter. She regains her hearing through an experimental government study and scores the ability to “hear” what people are thinking. At the same time, the other study participants are losing their minds and committing suicide.

A story where you can “hear” what the people around you have cooking in their inner monologues sounds intriguing, but not here. Liza attracts the attentions of Grant (John J. York), the shelter social worker. They’d developed a friendship before she got her hearing back. Now, she can “hear” how much he likes her. There are laughable moments in what are meant to be serious scenes.

When CIA operative Aiden (Costas Mandylor) gets Liza work (“listening” to a serial killer to learn where his victims are buried and negotiating in a school hostage situation), the movie teases you into thinking it’s about to become interesting, but again, no.

Liza is overwhelmed by all the voices. She and Grant start dating. Grant looks like an ‘80s country star and his inner monologue reveals he’s not bright. Aiden looks straight out of American Psycho. Aiden gives Liza silver earrings that “block” her ability to hear the mind talk of others. This provides Liza great relief. Grant has no idea about the effect of these earrings; he gets jealous and gives her a pair and they are hideous.

The plot includes every tangled-up detail that only adds to the distance between you and this joke. The acting is so affected and over the top, I cannot recommend Eavesdropper under any circumstances. I want my 95 minutes back.

Writer/Director: Andrew Bakalar

Country: USA

Genre: Thriller

Run time: 95 minutes

Scale: 1

Blue Car (2002)

Meg (Agnes Bruckner) discovers her blossoming talent as a poet in AP English. It gives her respite from her duties as stand-in mom at home to her mentally ill younger sister as her single mom works to make ends meet since Meg’s father abandoned them.

The pressure gets to neglected Meg as her sister Lily (Regan Arnold) cuts herself, won’t eat and obsesses about morbidity. Meg finds solace in the attention of her English teacher, Mr. Auster (David Strathairn). She wins a contest and a chance to go to the regionals. As he mentors her writing, she develops feelings for him. I hoped that Blue Car wouldn’t go “there” to the realm of the student-teacher affair. You see it coming but for a long time, it looks as though it will be averted until it comes crashing.

The distance between the two girls and their mother grows. Meg hides more as tragedy strikes the family. She is determined to get to the regionals which leads to the movie’s crescendo. Meg’s brooding and sadness saturate the screen. I loved the process where how she writes her poem Blue Car. The way we are there with Meg’s emotions and reality is the strongest aspect of Blue Car. In need of attention and love, Meg she puts all her hopes and dreams in her teacher’s basket. He takes advantage of this, but she is metamorphosing. She has become a writer but Auster isn’t who she believed him to be. The ending brings her to a new understanding of how she fits in the world and what she needs to stand on her own.

Writer/Director: Karen Moncrieff

Country: USA

Genre: Drama

Run time: 96 minutes

Scale: 3

Hanyo (The Housemaid) (2010)

Hanyo grips and doesn’t let you turn away. Immediately, you know that new housemaid Eun-yi Li (Do-yeon Jeon) is in a strange home with peculiar people when she starts alongside the seasoned older maid Byung-sik (Yeo-Jong Yun) who’s worked in the home for years.

Eun-yi Li is seduced by her new employer Hoon (Jung-Jae Lee) and the two begin an affair. By day, she tends to his pregnant wife, Hae-ra (Seo Woo), and daughter, Nami (Seo-Hyeon Ahn). By night, Hoon pays Eun-yi clandestine visits (always with wine bottle in hand). While the young maid is enjoying her double-duty, the older maid is not keen on her apprentice’s extracurricular activities. She plays both sides—loyal to her employers but knowing them, what they are capable of and telling Eun-yi to be careful. When Eun-yi gets pregnant, Byung-sik betrays her. Eun-yi faces the wrath of Hae-ra and her mother, who proves to be shockingly vengeful in her efforts to get Eun-yi to terminate her pregnancy.

The commentary on socio-economic differences is at the forefront in this horror thriller, reminding Eun-yi she is worth little, if anything, but never giving us much to understand what her life was like previous to this job, except that she shared a tiny place and bed with an equally fiscally strapped pal. The set design is brilliant—the stately home as a cold prison. In a scene eerily similar to the balcony fall in The Omen, you are foreshadowed for the climax. The characters are disturbed and you will be too. The final scene is a neo-Adams family mishmash.

(One seemingly unresolved detail: Hoon and his mother-in-law congratulate Byung-sik on her son’s new post as prosecutor. Her reaction to Hoon Goh is anger. Why? Was her son Hoon Goh’s brother? That would bring this story full circle.)

Writer/Director: Sang-soo Im

Country: South Korea

Genre: Thriller

Run time: 105 minutes

Scale: 3

The 27 Club (2008)

The 27 Club is a study in sadness told in flashbacks during a cross-country road trip. Elliot (Joe Anderson) is reeling from the death of best friend and bandmate Tom (James Forgey) just after Tom’s 27th birthday. The two grew up like brothers in a dysfunctional home before finding success as the band Finn.

As Elliot starts on his road trip from LA to Joplin, Missouri, to take care of his dead friend’s last request, the alcohol, drugs and shock of losing his best friend prove too much. Hungover, he stumbles into a grocery store; following an altercation, the cashier calms a flustered Elliot. In turn, Elliot offers the cashier $10,000 to drive him “east.”

Elliot is strikingly reminiscent of a young, sleep-deprived Kurt Cobain while the straight-laced, nameless driver looks like a young Leonard Nimoy. For the late-bloomer driver, this journey becomes his coming-of-age experience. The two merely co-exist as Elliot wrestles his demons. Anderson’s Elliot emotes with his haunting expression—mirroring the pain and turmoil from within. It isn't until they pick-up hitchhiker Stella (Eve Hewson, daughter of U2’s Bono) that the two begin to bond. Although she recognizes Elliot from Finn, she doesn’t immediately acknowledge nor share the information.

The 27 Club contains little crescendo and ends quietly. While soulful, it feels like a freshman film effort, which doesn’t harm the story. The emotional journey through Elliot’s mourning is symbolically interlaced with scenic American landscapes to nibble on.

Writer/Director: Erica Dunton

Country: USA

Genre: Drama

Run time: 84 minutes

Scale: 3.5

Noruwei no mori (Norwegian Wood) (2010)

Winning streak has ended.

Norwegian Wood is a coming-of-age story that delves into suicide and its effects on the survivors. Toru (Ken'ichi Matsuyama) and Kizuki (Kengo Kôra) are old friends. Without any indication, Kizuki kills himself. Toru leaves for university and runs into Naoko (Rinko Kikuchi), Kizuki’s girlfriend at his death. The two become involved as they share their grief and indulge in sexual awakening. See, it’s the 60s. Naoko digresses and ends up in an asylum in the woods (is this how they treated the mentally ill back then?). Feeling a sense of responsibility and longing, Toru visits Naoko, as she progressively gets worse.

At university, he meets Midori (Kiko Mizuhara), the peculiar ray of light in this dark tunnel of suffering (Naoko’s roommate at the asylum also provides some odd humor). She likes him. He isn’t available because he is trying to do right by Naoko. Meanwhile, his roommate encourages him to take advantage of being young and single in the sexually liberated ‘60s.

Parts of the plot are compelling, but the experience goes on for too long. Scenes are uneven and plod together, but the landscapes are palpably beautiful. With several suicides and rare moments of levity cushioned between so much calamity and, at times, boredom, it’s difficult to sit through. I’ve watched more distressing movies that have ended too fast; something is missing here. The movie ends on a hopeful note that feels wrong.

Based on the novel by Haruki Murakami, the movie will likely appeal to the author’s die-hard fans. I’d love to hear how someone who revered the book felt about the movie. It’s possible that the story is too cerebral to capture accurately on screen.

Director: Anh Hung Tran

Country: Japan

Genre: Drama

Run time: 133 minutes

Scale: 2