Review by
Eric Hillis
Directed by: Jeanette Nordahl
Starring: Sidse Babett Knudsen, Sandra Guldberg Kampp, Joachim
Fjelstrup, Besir Zeciri, Elliott Crosset Hove, Carla Philip Røder
Jeanette Nordahl's directorial debut, Wildland, asks you to suspend your disbelief and accept its unlikely premise.
If you can do so, you're in for a compelling 90 minutes featuring some
of the best performances you'll see in European cinema all year.
Said unlikely premise sees 17-year-old Ida (newcomer
Sandra Guldberg Kampp, who looks like the lovechild of River
Phoenix and Scarlet Johansson) orphaned after surviving the car crash
that took her mother's life. She is subsequently handed over to the care
of her aunt Bodil (Sidse Babett Knudsen), whom she hasn't seen
since she was an infant. Bodil's warm, maternal demeanour is at odds
with her role as the matriarch of a dangerous criminal clan who
terrorise the vicinity with their strong-arm loan shark business. Social
services and the police are both fully aware of Bodil's enterprise, so
why on Earth would they allow her to become Ida's guardian? Best to put
aside that inconvenient question and immerse yourself in the grimy drama
that ensues.
Ida is quickly taken under the wing of Bodil's adult sons – the
intimidating Viking Jonas (Joachim Fjelstrup), the video-game
addicted manchild Mads (Besir Zeciri) and the drug-addled and
mentally troubled David (Elliott Crosset Hove). The three
brothers take their niece out clubbing, but also on their trips to
collect money from their "clients". In one of the most morally
reprehensible acts I've seen depicted on screen for quite some time,
Jonas uses the presence of Ida to lure the young daughter of a man who
owes him money into his car. "Once I talk to their children they always
pay," he calmly informs Ida.
Ida is quickly sucked into her new family's ways, becoming defensive
when David's put-upon girlfriend (Carla Philip Røder) describes
them as "crazy". We get the sense that Ida lived a very conservative
life with her mother, and is enjoying the madness of the world of Bodil
and her boys, where getting drunk in the afternoon isn't frowned upon.
Ida finds herself at a crossroads when she witnesses the accidental
shooting of one of Bodil's clients by David. Instinctively she flees the
scene and heads straight for her social worker, but she can't bring
herself to betray her family.
This leads to some nerve-wracking, tense scenes when Bodil's friendly
façade breaks down as she now sees Ida as a threat to her family.
There's nothing in nature quite as scary as a mother defending her
offspring, and Knudsen's switch from smiling suburban mom to
cold-hearted crimelord is pulled off in spectacular fashion by Knudsen,
who late in her career is becoming one of Europe's most exciting
actresses.
Equally impressive is Kampp, tasked with a difficult role that largely
requires her to communicate her feelings through small gestures, given
how shy and insular her character is. She really sells Ida's
rollercoaster ride from being embraced by her foster clan to finding her
very existence threatened by the very same people. As Ida becomes
trapped in an awful situation she has no control over and seemingly no
way of escaping, you'll wish you could reach into the screen and pull
her out of this nest of vipers.
Wildland falls just short of being a top-tier thriller by
resolving its conflict at a point where a lot more suspense could have
been drained out of the scenario. Chop off the closing 10 minutes and it
might resemble the pilot episode for a prestige Nordic Noir show, but
you'd certainly be compelled to watch any subsequent episodes.
