A droll dramedy of bourgeois social awkwardness morphs into a deep-cut tragedy about the effects of a mother’s psychological frailty on her grown-up children, in Danish director Mads Mengel‘s impressively uncozy debut feature “The Guest.” Clean-lined and sharp-edged, with David Bauer’s cinematography washed in cool-toned summer light and line-dried under pale Scandinavian skies, the film has many hallmarks of the current Nordic drama wave: parental estrangement, familial resentments, the pained politeness of the middle-class in response to social discomfort, blondeness. But in a virtuosic yet restrained performance of volatility from actress Trine Dyrholm, it also shows a steely tensile strength that distinguishes it from its softer contemporaries. Nothing here is hygge.
It is set, however, in the highly convivial surroundings of a plush seaside hotel, where well-dressed guests have been invited to celebrate with Karl (Simon Bennebjerg) and Emilie (Mette Klakstein Wiberg) at the naming party for their newborn son, Elliott. They have designed the event as a kind of secular baptism rite: a few sweet words spoken, a dip in the shallows of the sea for the infant, followed by a nice dinner and drinks. And so there’s a lightly sardonic sense of humor at play, as amid the preparatory kerfuffle, Karl’s wealthy, unimpeachably respectable in-laws treat with war-room seriousness the vital question of whether asparagus or salmon would be a preferable starter, and Karl’s sister Rikke (a terrific Josephine Park) wonders what to do with her dog, whom she believes dislikes her.
