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In A Better World (2011)

Director: Susanne Bier

Time Out rating

Average user rating

5 reviews

Movie review

From Time Out London

This year’s Best Foreign Language Oscar winner switches between war-torn Africa and bourgeois Denmark to pose telling questions about violence and responsibility. Medic Anton (Mikael Persbrandt, pictured) saves lives in a refugee camp, but a brutal warlord stymies his efforts. Should he turn the other cheek? That’s his reaction back home when menaced by a local lout, in an impeccable passive resistance lesson for his bullied teenage son Elias (Marcus Rygaard). The latter, though, is far more impressed when his classmate Christian (William Jøhnk Juel Nielsen) takes a seriously kick-ass approach to anyone giving them hassle. What price non-violence when a good thrashing gets results? Ace screenwriter Anders Thomas Jensen lines up the opposing arguments in a crisp, no-nonsense manner, allowing the viewer to feel the moral dilemmas as keenly as the characters do, while director Suzanne Bier marshals the cast without a false note. True, the resolutions on offer seem conventionally pat, yet the tough questions stay with you in an absorbing drama which pushes the viewer’s buttons with effective intelligence.

Author: Trevor Johnston

Time Out London Issue 2139: 18 – 24, 2011

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User reviews of this film

Les Reid said...

Posted on Aug 28 2011 18:01 Intelligent and thought-provoking. The film tackles some difficult issues, relating to violence, social tension and revenge, and does so without resorting to easy answers. Well cast, well acted and directed. Blier achieves narrative drive without losing realism of characters or plot. A good Oscar winner.

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Dutch Susann Bier fan said...

Posted on Aug 24 2011 11:19 Quite a brilliant film if you were to ask me and neatly and convincingly put together. I enjoyed all of Susann Bier's last films as well: Brothers, After The Wedding and even her Hollyood film Things We Lost In The Fire. If only we have such a brilliant director like her in the Netherlands!. The best Dutch director is perhaps Paul Verhoeven but he made his last film Black Book way back in 2006. The other Dutch directors are apparently only making mostly commercial films or less than successful arthouse films without much audience appeal. Bride Flight (directed by Ben Sombogaart) & Winter in Wartime (directed by Martin Koolhoven) were two quite good recent Dutch films though.

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Phil Ince said...

Posted on Aug 19 2011 22:17 Mikael Persbrandt and the lad playing his bullied son give the film some weight but the dialogue and characterisation generally are sadly 'Hollywood', it might just as well be a collection of dolls being moved round a diagram. Between each 'episode' of the film, there's some randomly attractive nature photography. Film + ads + travel time = a misspent half a day.

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Alihamp said...

Posted on Aug 16 2011 23:15 Superb film, Well desrved Oscar and Golden Globe.

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JayV said...

Posted on Aug 16 2011 19:28 Yep, conventionally pat resolutions, and familiar 'tough' questions. Didactic. Complacent. Superior production values = Oscar bait.
Two stars.

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