+ Best Danish Movie of the Year + Best Sex Drama of the Year
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| A fairly hideously designed poster for May el-Toukhy's Queen of Hearts, which seems to indicate an orgy between generations |
A successful mother and wife career woman lets her life become untethered, when her husband's late-teenage son from a former marriage moves in with them, and she initiates a sexual relationship with him.
Queen of Hearts is written by Maren Louise Käehne (Shelley (2016)) and great Danish co-writer/director May el-Toukhy (Long Story Short/Lang Historie Kort (2015)). It is a layered and complex drama about issues of marriage, sexuality, culpability, manipulation and responsibility.
Trine Dyrholm (A Royal Affair/En Kongelig Affære (2016)) gives what is arguably her best performance to date as the unwound protagonist, who gets her way around her husband with eerie and amazing cunning, while letting herself roam free from morality behind the curtains.
What makes the adulterous relation in Queen of Hearts especially provocative and wrong in my eyes is not so much the young man's age, (he looks to be at least 17 or 18), but more so the fact that he is her step-son, - and mostly so the fact that they carry on their sinful relation in and around the family's home, which seems the ultimate disregard for everyone else. The overstepping of course mostly shames Dyrholm's character, who is in full command of her wits, is fully mature and aware of her conduct. But I personally cannot completely exonerate her Swedish husband (well-played by Magnus Krepper (Ditte & Louise (2015-16)), whose wrongdoing is that he leads a tame marriage to a partner who is obviously neglected to some degree, in attention, sexually especially, - while he moves in his attractive son to their home and leaves the two of them alone. Gustav Lindh (All Inclusive (2017)) who was around 23 at the time of shooting, is very good as the troubled son, SPOILER who becomes mixed-up from the experience.
SPOILER The development is that of a downwards spiral: The great script and expert handling makes every step wholly authentic and believably natural; but things almost couldn't go any worse for our protagonist or the other main characters.
The film has elegant and evocative photography (by Jasper Spanning (The Guilty/Den Skyldige (2018))), which also helps to set the thematic scene through shots of gnarly, naked, wiry tree branches; nature has convoluted chaos that can sometimes resemble the inner workings of humans, these fine images seem to relate. The production is also graced with good production values and wardrobe decisions; especially Dyrholm's character's costumes are incredibly elegant, and she carries them with the powerful aplomb of an everyday queen. (Costumes by Rebecca Richmond (Heartless (2014, TV-series), costumer)).
Queen of Hearts is a film for grown-ups; a heady, lingering drama to be sure. My only negative note goes to its choice concerning the sexuality it portrays: El-Toukhy has especially one sexually explicit scene, which naturally wouldn't be done with any underage actor. The sex is sure to stir up conflicting feelings of arousal and nausea for different audiences. - But at the same time the narrative keeps a point alive about the young man being a boy and "just a child", as the protagonist's sister puts it, - which is obviously false. This point would have been stronger and relevant in the film, if casting had gone with a younger male actor, - and we could have skipped the explicit sex in that case.
Related post:
May el-Toukhy: 2019 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
2019 in films - according to Film Excess
Long Story Short/Lang Historie Kort (2015) - Charming actors elevate generational, party-centered romcom
Cost: Reportedly 19.5 mil. DKK, equalling approximately 2.91 mil. $
Box office: In excess of 3.2 mil. $ and counting
= Currently a huge flop (has returned 1.09 times its cost)
[Queen of Hearts premiered 20 January (Sundance Film Festival, Utah) and runs 127 minutes. Shooting took place in the Copenhagen area. The film won an audience award at Sundance. It has sold an impressive 318k admissions in Denmark, but as it is part of Cinema Club Denmark, a large portion of the admissions are sold at half prize. A realistic outcome is therefore a 21.8 mil. DKK gross/3.25 mil. $. Listed is also a gross from Hungary, Lithuania and Russia of 35k $. - This would put the gross currently at 3.2 mil. $ and counting. The film is set to release in Poland (7 June), Belgium (19 June), Netherlands (20 June) and the UK (6 September) and could hopefully still turn a profit. El-Toukhy has not announced her next film yet. Dyrholm returned in Brecht (2019). 704 IMDb users have given Queen of Hearts an 8/10 average rating.]
What do you think of Queen of Hearts?
