Movie Review

Directed by Susanne Bier, starring: Mads Michelsen (Jacob), Sidse Barrett Knudsen (Helene), Rolf Lasgard (Jorgen), Stine Fischer Christensen (Anna), some English and Urdu but mostly Danish with English subtitles, 119 minutes, 2007.

Jacob is a young idealist working in an orphanage in India. He has a wonderful relationship with the children especially with a young child whom he has personally cared for since he was born. He is told by the Indian woman who runs the orphanage that she wants him to go to Denmark to talk with a potential donor about critically needed funds for the very survival of the orphanage. He is very reluctant to go back "home" but goes.

Jacob is put up in an opulent hotel, meets the donor who is a very wealthy man and gets invited to the donor's estate as a guest at his daughter Anna's wedding. Jorgen is a devoted father to his children and affectionate husband to his wife Helene. At the wedding reception Jacob recognizes Helene as someone he knew from earlier times. Electricity sparks. When Anna makes a speech thanking Jorgen for not being her birth father but caring for her and her mother Jacob and we realize that Jacob is probably the father of the young woman. Apparently Jacob and Helene were young lovers who traveled in India together but Helene left when Jacob's drinking, drugging and philandering became too much for her. When she got home she realized she was pregnant, met and married Jorgen and for twenty years they have been a happy couple. A very rich happy couple!

All hell breaks loose and there are angry recriminations all round. She thought Jacob would follow her home. He thought she would return to India. Why didn't she tell him about the child? Why did he hide? Eventually she thought he was dead. Jacob turns out to be a very flawed person and not the self-sacrificing idealist we all assumed.

In the midst of this, Helene discovers that Jorgen's irrational behaviour is related to a devastating diagnosis of some unnamed disease that will shortly lead to his death. However, Jorgen makes a proposition to Jacob that in exchange for his setting up a foundation of US$ 12 Million that Jacob and his newly discovered daughter Anna would run, Jacob would agree to stay in Denmark. Essentially, Jorgen takes Jacob "unto a high mountain and shows him all the kingdoms of the earth". Jacob refuses. Is the discovery of an unknown daughter and former lover a completely unplanned / unforeseen event or has the very powerful Jorgen manipulated it all? Is his generous offer a bargain for his own soul in the face of his impending death? ("this very night thy soul shall be required of thee!") We don't find out but the question hangs over all the relationships.

Jacob however, does return to India and is united with the young boy he treats as his son and invites him to come to live with him in Denmark. The child refuses the offer in order to stay in poverty with his friends at the orphanage. Jacob is free and presumably becomes the director of a very powerful trust fund and is reunited with his new daughter and former lover. As in the Parable of the Prodigal son, the story is unfinished. We don't really know whether the younger son could stand all the attention he gets and maybe left again when the partying is over. We don't know whether the elder brother stays in an unreconciled snit with his father. We presume that the father's prodigal love continues for both.

People struggle with important questions of meaning in this complex story, such as questions of fidelity, wealth, truth, forgiveness and the fear of death. Despite your now knowing the plot and outcome you will find this a gripping story that will repay in thoughtful moments that will persist long after the final credits.