Open Hearts - Sonja Richter, Mads Mikkelsen, Paprika Steen

OPEN HEARTS
aka ELSKER DIG FOR EVIGT

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Year: 2002
USA: Newmarket Film Group
UK: Icon Film Distribution
Cast: Sonja Richter, Mads Mikkelsen, Paprika Steen, Nikolaj Lie Kaas, Stine Bjerregaard, Birthe Neumann, Niels Olsen, Ulf Pilgaard, Ronnie Hiort Lorenzen, Pelle Bang Sørensen, Anders Nyborg, Ida Dwinger, Philip Zandén
Director: Susanne Bier
Country: Denmark
Language: Danish (English subtitles)
USA: 114 mins
UK: 113 mins
USA Rated: R for language and sexuality
UK Certificate: 15 contains very strong language and moderate sex
USA Release Date: 28 February 2003 (Limited Release - Los Angeles)
USA Release Date: 21 February 2003 (Limited Release - New York)
UK Release Date: 4 April 2003

PHASE9 movie review

Synopsis

What happens when the momentum of one's life is stopped short in a single moment? How does life go on when what we've come to take for granted disappears?

Cecilie (Sonja Richter) and Joachim (Nikolaj Lie Kaas) are young, happy, and in love until a terrible car accident leaves Joachim paralyzed from the neck down. While Cecilie wishes desperately to comfort him and salvage something of the happy couplehood they shared, he is locked in a state of fury and despair, wanting only to be left alone.

Feeling helpless and miserable, Cecilie finds herself drawn to the husband of the woman who hit Joachim, a family man and doctor named Niels (Mads Mikkelsen). Hoping to comfort his shaken wife, who walked away from the accident unharmed, Niels offers a sympathetic ear to the grief-stricken Cecilie. Their tentative friendship blossoms into a passionate affair, and as Neils finds himself falling deeply in love, his seemingly happy life begins to fall apart.

Adhering to the guidelines of the celebrated Dogme 95 manifesto and featuring a cast of some of the best Danish actors and actresses, director Susanne Bier's seventh feature is a stunning exploration of adult passions and dilemmas that pose a thorny question: How does one survive the reverberations of a single tragic moment?

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