I have went to long with out writing anything. I've watched several movies in the last few weeks that I haven't been writing reviews for, so I thought I should really get back to it. This isn't the best movie for me to review right away since I'm a little rusty, but Ill do my best.
Joachim and Cecilie are a young couple in love and engaged to be married, they are happy and energetic, they truly have young love, what could go wrong? He is going on a mountain climbing trip and she drops him off in their car, he steps into the street and is struck by a car. It shatters his spine and breaks his neck. He is left a quadriplegic, he cant move anything below his neck. He is angry, and bitter, understandably, and keeps trying to get rid of Cecilie, he cant stand being around her, he thinks how could she love him now? He is in the hospital, and as she goes to visit him, and receives his verbal abuse, she starts to lean on the husband (Niels) of the woman (Marie) who was driving the car who hit Joachim.
They begin an affair, and they both are so into the other they ignore the crash course they are headed on, several lives have been destroyed, many others damaged and they are going to finish the job of breaking all of them.
Its shot very cheaply, and I mean that in a good way, it was shot on a low grade digital camera giving it a lot of electrical grain in the image. it looks very gritty and more like a documentary that a narrative with the addition that almost all of it is handheld, and it wasn't over done. There seemed to be minimal lighting, even at times just working with available light. The cinematography and writing was successful in making me think about it as being real and then I was just able to watch the acting and feel the raw emotions emitting from the scenes instead of the beauty or ugliness of the image. I would actually prefer they work more on the cinematography, but in this case it worked better for them to play it down.
The dialogue is very European, there is a certain sense of apathy to some of the characters. The acting in it is key to making it work, there is seemingly very little that happens after the accident, of course the affair begins, but most of it is dedicated to just watching the characters trying to cope and live instead of a lot of action moving the story along.
It did a great job of showing every ones situation in it, from the feeling of helplessness and anger that Joachim has to Marie's guilt over doing that to him. We understand Cecilie's dedication and semi-betrayal out of desperation. The one I guess I don't get, or particularly like was Marie's husband Niels, the doctor who begins the affair with Cecile, he thinks only of himself and doesn't seem to care what he does to his family, he thinks he's in love.
Overall it was a great movie to watch and put yourself in their shoes for a few hours, feel what its like to have something occur in a second that changes every aspect of the rest of your life. 7/10 stars.
Director: Susanne Bier
Starring: Mads Mikkelsen, Sonja Richter, Nikolaj Lie Kass, Paprika Steen, Stine Bjerregaard
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