Rating: 5/5
Lucas is a divorced kindergarten teacher who helps Klara, a girl in his class. She develops a crush and tries to kiss him, but when Lucas attempts to squash it, she lashes out by telling another teacher details from a pornographic image that her brother showed her, leaving the teacher to believe that Lucas exposed himself to Klara
Instead of going directly to the police, they try to handle it themselves and make it so much worse. It is incredibly frustrating because of how understandable the process they take is, even if it is the wrong way
Lucas does still have support from his son and one of Lucas’ friends, so it is not a hopeless spiral — it is a nuanced story full of humanity, for better or worse — but that doesn’t make the journey any less difficult
The film emphasizes the degree of intimacy required when working with Kindergartners and how that intimacy gets messy when the teacher reads as male
Between this and Another Round, director Thomas Vinterberg does a great job at portraying friendships — what you know (or think you know) about one another, what is spoken and unspoken, and how fragile they are
What a third act!