Never have I seen a dancing movie less about dancing. There is dancing, but it’s plot-irrelevant, used as visual poetry and texture. The dancing reflects the mood of the protagonist, Annika (Trine Dyrholm), bright and beautiful in her ebullience, discordant and wrong when she is conflicted and afraid.
Annika (I totally want to steal that name if I ever have another girl-kid) brought to mind Sally Hawkins’ Poppy in Mike Leigh’s Happy-Go-Lucky: personified sunshine and lightness. But where Poppy played carelessly with her angry, male counterpart, Annika approaches Lasse (Anders W. Berthelsen) with tentative persistence and struggles with her attraction to a possibly dangerous man. It’s difficult to imagine why this delightful, gorgeous, sensual woman is unattached. There are hints of past “normal” boyfriends, and we gradually perceive her to be under her mother’s control. Lasse accuses her of having a belated rebellion, but it seems to run deeper than that. Her attraction to Lasse, who is dark and unsmiling but magnetic, is immediate and enduring. The two leads are fantastic. Lasse’s pained brutality pitted against Annika’s ardent hope and new, but deeply-felt, need.
The director evokes menace in tiny ways: I held my breath as Lasse suddenly raised his arm while Annika’s back was turned; and Annika running alone, sensual and vigorous in early scenes, becomes terribly suspenseful after we learn a bit more about Lasse’s past.
It’s a redemption tale, or possibly a story of the triumph of love over reason. The final dancing scene conveys a happier and more whole Annika, glowing with possibility. Her choice in the end is her own, whether right or wrong, and she is fortified by the choosing as much as by love.