Review: The Girl With The Needle

-


Official synopsis: Copenhagen 1919: A young worker (Vic Carmen Sonne)  finds herself unemployed and pregnant. She meets Dagmar, (Trine Dyrholm) who runs an underground adoption agency. A strong connection grows but her world shatters when she stumbles on the shocking truth behind her work

I have to say, I went into this Oscar nominee pretty blind. It is very loosely inspired by true events that happened in Denmark at the time, but I wasn't aware of it. So to say I was unprepared would be an understatement.

This film rests neatly alongside Loveless and Tyrannosaur in the "Very well made, but I never want to watch you again" category. It's relentlessly bleak. The little moments of reprieve you get are eventually ripped away. Still, I couldn't take my eyes off of it. It's a very transfixing story.

Sonne and Dyrholm are great together. Both characters carry so much in different ways, and they easily make you see it. The last meeting between the two characters at the end is very powerful. It's a personal preference, but I don't care for the black and white cinematography. It does fit well with the time this film is set in, but I think having this in color, especially since Dagmar works in a candy shop could've been really interesting. 

The Girl With The Needle is currently nominated for an Oscar for Best International Feature and is available to stream on Mubi. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Thanks for stopping by, let's talk movies!
(comments are moderated to reduce spam)

Popular posts from this blog

Random Ramblings: The Radio Flyer Conundrum

-
Image
Recently, I was talking to someone about who I thought were the best child actors when I was also a child.  Two that really stood out to me were Elijah Wood and Joseph Mazello, and one film those two were in together was called Radio Flyer.  Then I was reminded about the uniqueness of this film. Instead of reviewing the film, I wanted to have an open discussion about the ending. It deals with a tough issue; child abuse. What I’ve noticed is the way that the film ends is interpreted many different ways, and the filmmakers never came forward to say what was right and wrong. I’m interested in hearing everyone’s opinions on it. How did you interpret the ending? Obviously spoiler alerts will follow.. For those of you who haven’t seen the film, the basic premise is this: Two young boys, Mikey (Wood) and Bobby (Mazello) move in with their single mother and her boyfriend, who refers to himself as ‘The King’. It doesn’t take long for The King to start physically abusing ...
Read more

Review: Armand

-
Image
Official Synopsis : Armand, a 6-year-old boy, is accused of crossing boundaries against his best friend at elementary school. His mother, Elisabeth (Renate Reinsve) is called to his school to discuss an action plan. This is Norway's submission to the 2025 Oscars for Best International Feature and I've been itching to see what else Reinsve can do after her excellent performance in The Worst Person in The World . Turns out, she can do anything. I think she's even better here.  I have to acknowledge the elephant in the room (in the blog?) This is going to get A LOT of comparisons to Germany's The Teachers' Lounge and while those are not completely unwarranted - this is another film set entirely in a school where a crime may have been committed - Armand takes a very different look at its subjects and how it plays out.  The way this is shot is very captivating. Director Halfdan Ullmann Tøndel clearly knows what he's doing behind the camera despite this being his fir...
Read more

My Favorite Movie Youtube Channels

-
Image
Starting around 2018, I started watching Youtube for more than just movie trailers or music videos whenever a new one dropped. Now I'm in full blown subscription mode and don't bat an eyelash at watching a Youtube video that's over an hour long. I watch Youtube for a few different categories of content, but one of them that I love most is movie/TV essays and commentary, and that's what I'm going to talk about today. Below is a list of my favorite movie related Youtube channels. Let me know if you're familiar with them too, or if you have any you'd like to recommend to me.  Double Toasted - I'm honestly surprised this channel isn't bigger. I first came across Korey and Martin when they reviewed War for the Planet of the Apes a few months before it hit theaters and I thought they were hysterical. While their full length videos stream on Twitch, they often upload their movie reviews and commentary on youtube and they're always hilarious. They've...
Read more