A Second Chance

This Danish drama from Susanne Bier and Anders Thomas Jensen, the director and writer duo behind ‘Love is All You Need’ (2012) and ‘In a Better World’ (2010), isn’t short on atmosphere, decent acting and good intentions – but the premise is hard to swallow. It’s even a little distasteful, considering that issues relating to cot death, drug addiction and domestic abuse are buried beneath the veneer of an unexceptional mystery-cum-melodrama. It’s best not to reveal much, but the plot switches between two sets of young parents – one couple are junkies, the others comfortably middle-class. The father in the latter set-up is a cop, Andreas (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau from ‘Game of Thrones’), and when tragedy strikes his family, his reaction tips the film into the realm of fatal contrivance. The thriller tendencies here are as half-cocked as its compassion for the struggles of parenthood, even if there are some admirable, if hard-to-watch, moments when Bier refuses to turn away from horror and pain.