Queen of Hearts
Danish drama about a successful lawyer who embarks on an affair with her teenage stepson. Winner of the Audience Award at the Sundance Film Festival.
Anne, a successful lawyer, lives in a beautiful modernist home with her two daughters and physician husband, Peter. Yet when Gustav, Peter’s troubled teenage son from another relationship, comes to live with them, Anne forms an intimate bond with Gustav that jeopardizes her perfect life. What initially seems like a liberating move for Anne soon turns into a disturbing story of power, betrayal, and responsibility with devastating consequences.
Director May el-Toukhy masterfully builds Anne’s world, seducing the viewer into complicity before manoeuvring her protagonist onto an unsettling and shocking path. Trine Dyrholm, one of Denmark’s finest actors, skilfully inhabits the complicated Anne. In a finely calibrated performance, Dyrholm humanizes Anne’s contradictions and unpredictable behaviour, creating an even more disconcerting character.