Queen of Hearts
Trine Dyrholm is magnetic in this Sundance Audience Award winner about the abuse of power and just how far we’ll go to hold on to our comfortable existence.
High-flying lawyer Anne seems to have it all: beautiful children, a doctor husband and a picture-perfect house in the woods. But Anne’s world is shaken when her troubled teenage stepson Gustav joins the household. While her husband struggles to reconnect with his son, Anne – who works with young victims of abuse at her law firm – forms a bond with him … a bond that eventually oversteps the bounds, putting Anne’s family and career in jeopardy.
Driven by a powerful performance by Trine Dyrholm (Nico, 1988, MIFF 2018), Queen of Hearts won the Audience Award (World Cinema Dramatic) at Sundance as well as the Best Nordic Film, Best Acting and Audience Awards at the Göteborg International Film Festival. About as far from Mrs Robinson as you can get, the film withholds passing judgement on its characters in favour of offering a complex examination of moral sexual transgression in a post-#MeToo era.
“Dyrholm gives a brave and shockingly bare performance as a prosperous yet jaded woman and a seductress who’d do anything at all costs to preserve the life she’s accustomed to.” – RogerEbert.com