Review of "In a Better World"

Simply put, this would be a better world if there were more films like "In a Better World."

Not that this year's Oscar winner for best foreign language film is all butterflies and jellybeans. It's decidedly not. It challenges the viewer, eschews easy answers, raises ugly questions and faces tragic situations head-on. But director Susanne Bier, working again with scriptwriter Anders Thomas Jensen (they previously did the masterful "Brothers" and "After the Wedding"), manages to bring great reality and emotion to eerily believable moments in this film.

She never gives in to sensation, she never loses control of her often out-of-control characters, and she guides the film's roiling emotions toward a properly imperfect end.

The setup is a bit complicated, but then life is.

Anton (Mikael Persbrandt) is a Danish surgeon working in African refugee camps. The need there is overwhelming, but he's professional and carries on. Still, he's rocked to the core when someone brings in a woman who has had her living fetus cut out of her.

It turns out this was the work of someone called "The Big Man." The Big Man likes to make bets on what gender baby a woman is carrying, and then he cuts the child out to prove if he's wrong or right.

Meanwhile, back in Denmark, Anton's oldest son, pre-teen Elias (Markus Rygaard) is being bullied mercilessly at school. Enter new student Christian (William John Nielsen), a boy whose mother has just died and is in no mood for bullies.

When he emphatically puts Elias' attackers in their place, a bond grows between the two boys.

After all, Christian is down to one parent, the too-understanding Claus (Ulrich Thomsen), and Elias' parents have separated because of Anton's long leaves of absence and an apparent indiscretion.

When Anton returns home on a break, he and his physician wife Marianne (Trine Dyrholm, playing brilliantly beneath the character) share custody of Elias and meet Christian.

Soon however, it becomes apparent to Elias that something has snapped inside of Christian. This occurs to him around the time Christian begins building bombs.

This tension comes to a head when Anton, trying to break up a tussle between his younger son and another boy, is accosted by the other boy's father and challenged to a fight.

Anton attempts to explain to his children how fighting is never the best method to resolve problems. But Christian will have none of it. And suddenly Elias finds himself crushed within the argument.

Then Anton is sent back to Africa, where he finds the notorious Big Man requesting/demanding medical help.

What can Anton do? He's a doctor.

Moral pitfalls and dark choices litter this film; they are ugly situations that press in on the characters — socially, psychically, emotionally. And they each have consequences, often grim, always fraught with uneasiness or danger.

Yet somehow Bier and screenwriter Jensen keep it clear that these are real, breathing people enduring life's trials. Using beautiful Danish sunrises and sets, Bier constantly reminds that all these intense problems co-exist with intense beauty.

"In a Better World" doesn't so much dream as it does discover the decency down deep. It is heartbreaking and at times harrowing, yet it also manages to never be without wonder.

This isn't simply a film worth seeing; this is a film to treasure.