Several of Denmark’s finest actors, including Trine Dyrholm (The Commune) and Nikolaj Lie Kaas (Men & Chicken) star in this incisive, sometimes chilling drama about a school principal whose marriage begins to unravel after he receives a terminal diagnosis.
Peter Schønau Fog (maker of the Festival '06 hit The Art of Crying) returns with his long-awaited second feature, You Disappear. An incisive, sometimes chilling drama about a marriage disrupted by the sudden onset of illness, the fi lm stars several of Denmark's finest actors, including the sensational Trine Dyrholm (The Commune) and Nikolaj Lie Kaas (Men & Chicken and the Department Q series).
A principal at a posh private school, Frederik Halling (Kaas) is happily married and adores his job. During a vacation he begins acting erratically and when he's abruptly hospitalized, the family is confronted with life-changing news: Frederik's odd behaviour may have been caused by a brain tumour. After he returns home, Frederik's employer confronts him with a string of questionable investments that suggest his illness may have been affecting his behaviour for much longer than anyone realized.
In part, You Disappear is a philosophical rumination on cause and effect, the nature of identity, and the mystery of motive. Are Frederik's actions altruistic but reckless (as he claims) or self-serving and devious?
Our understanding of these events is further complicated because our point of view is often that of his wife, Mia (Dyrholm), a potentially unreliable witness who seems more troubled by the scandal and the disruption of her bourgeois lifestyle than by her husband's health.
Like In a Better World or Land of Mine, You Disappear asks large, troubling questions and brings them home in the form of an emotionally devastating, skillfully made domestic drama.
STEVE GRAVESTOCK