Starring: Trine Dyrholm, Pierce Brosnan, Molly Blixt Egelind
Ida (Dyrholm), a cancer sufferer is busy making plans to go
to the wedding of her daughter (Egelind) in Italy when she discovers her
husband (Kim Bodnia) having sex with one of his employees (Christiane
Schaumberg-Müller). In her distress, she crashes her car at the airport into
another car coincidentally belonging to Philip (Brosnan); the widowed father of
the soon-to-be groom (Sebastian Jessen). Although their relationship is prickly
at first, they grow closer as the wedding day approaches.
It’s very apparent that Den Skaldede Frisør is instantly
comparable to Mamma Mia (2008) with the Mediterranean setting, the approach of
a wedding and, of course, the appearance of Pierce Brosnan. Be warned. This is
not a fluffy, inoffensive rom-com to while away the hours. It is still a
romance and it is still a comedy (although that element does play second fiddle
to the drama). This is a film that also
depicts cancer in a rather forthright way (including some shots of a breast,
post-masterectomy), has rather mature approach to family dysfunction and
features a truly monstrous (as in wishing her perfectly healthy daughter had an
eating disorder) creation in Paprika Steen’s Benedickte. Trine Dyrholm carries
the film with an earnest and mildly bubbly optimism. Brosnan also delivers a
good performance despite a strange accent (Supposedly English, but with a
strange but definitely deliberate inflection made even more blatant by the
accent given by Danish actor Sebastian Jessen as Brosnan’s son). The film flits
between English and Danish so I wouldn’t recommend it to people who have
problems with subtitles, and whilst the film has a good story beautiful scenery
and great music by Johan Söderqvist it doesn’t start or end very
satisfactorily. However, what is in-between goes above what’s expected of
standard romantic-comedy fare.
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