Open Hearts

• Sonja Richter: Cecilie
• Mads Mikkelsen: Niels
• Paprika Steen: Marie
• Nikolaj Lie Kaas: Joachim
• Stine Bjerregaard: Stine
• Birthe Neumann: Hanne
• Niels Olsen: Finn
• Ulf Pilgaard: Thomsen
• Anders Nyborg: Robert
• Ida Dwinger: Sanne
• Michel Cast Holt: furniture store assistant
• Birgitte Prins: A & E Doctor
• Tina Gylling Mortensen: Nurse
• Hanne Wind Field: Nurse
• Pelle Bang Sørensen: Emil
• Ronnie Lorenzen: as Gustav

Forever and ever (also Open Hearts ) is a film by director Susanne Bier, shot in 2002 in Denmark. The film was shot according to the rules of Dogma 95 manifesto.

Action

Copenhagen. The 23 -year-old cook Cecilie ( Sonja Richter ) and geography student Joachim ( Nikolaj Lie Kaas ) are planning to get married. Prior to that he would like to go on a mountain hike in Patagonia and soothes Cecilie: it was there also no more dangerous than in their kitchen.

Together they travel to the city. Joachim gets out and says goodbye to Cecilie. Then Joe opens the door to kiss her goodbye. When he steps back on the road, he is struck by another car.

The Unfallverursacherin, Marie ( Paprika Steen ) is at the wheel of the other car. She had just got into a fight with her daughter Stine ( Stine Bjerregaard ), and the girl had asked them to go faster. Marie does not see the accident but heard the impact.

Cecilie is waiting in the hospital, while Joachim is operated on for hours. With a state of shock Marie is admitted to the same hospital, and told her husband Niels ( Mads Mikkelsen ), who works there as a doctor what happened and asks him to take care of the friend of the victim.

He finds Cecilie in the waiting hall. He introduces himself and gives her his card with the private number in case she needs help.

Because of the accident Joachim is paralyzed from the neck down. In his helplessness he feels humiliated by Cecilie visits and compassion and react aggressively. He fights them off and do not want to see them. Cecilie does not give up and visited him in spite of the ban, lies down crying to him and tried to put his limp arms around him. The nurses alert a physician who Cecilie eventually escorted out.

Confused by the behavior of her fiancé familiar Cecilie Niels increasingly to. From medical care gradually developed a love relationship. Niels, who was until then happily married to Marie ( together they have a daughter and two sons ), is caught in a crisis of conscience. He secretly meets with Cecilie still in her apartment and takes over even the Neukosten for a sofa, two lamps and a double bed.

The evidence for the furniture to be found by his watchful daughter Stine. Before tenement specified in the delivery address they waiting for him and is the father to task. While Marie is worried about Stine, this ring for Cecilie and asks them applied to leave her father alone. Cecilie has sought dialogue with Stine. The girl blames herself because she had asked her mother to go faster. When Marie shortly after a call from Cecilie receives and learns that her daughter is with her, she is surprised and asks her husband what it meant. Then she realizes and Niels does not deny to have entered an affair. Marie gives him a slap and then goes on to Cecilie to pick Stine. Shortly after both return, Marie Niels asks for forgiveness. But he leaves the family and moves in with his mistress.

While Niels and Cecilie lying in the arms, a nurse calls: Joachim had changed his mind and would now like to see his girlfriend. She immediately gets up, gets dressed and rushes to the hospital. Now she is back for days at his bedside.

Niels quartered a with a colleague. When trying to calm him down by assuring, Marie will take him determined again after some time with him, he replies bilious, "You do not even know if I want to win back Marie. "

When Joachim notice that Cecilie with the thoughts is somewhere else, he tells her that marriage is no longer an option. He gives it freely and ask them just about to visit him for some time now and then.

Reviews

"At the Hof Film Festival 2002 was " Open Hearts " the bright spots ( ... ), and if you wonder how it was that this film made ​​her look old the collected production yield of a West German cinema half-year, you will encounter is actually one of the roots the German misery. Because that, while Susanne Bier imagery most decidedly opposed, is just those run of the mill aesthetics of prime-time television film, which is also in our cinema is predominant for some time. The " dogma " Manifesto has wiped their standards with a stroke of the pen aside, but there are films like " Open Hearts " ... who redeem the bold claim artistic. "

"With a pronounced sense of atmosphere and the quiet humor behind the tragedy of the director through a rollercoaster of emotions. Actors like Mads Mikkelsen ( " Flickering Lights " NFL 2001), Paprika Steen ( " The Celebration", NFL 1998) and Nikolaj Lie Kaas ( " Truly Human", NFL 2001) have rarely been as compelling as in " Open Hearts ", the currently in Denmark all box office records broken. "

" The dogma experienced team to director Susanne Bier manages the feat to develop from seemingly hopeless emotional situations with humor and optimism positive outlook. "

" Abundant handkerchief cinema, but in spite of all docu- close something strange Constructed appends. At the beginning and end, Ms. beer is then but over the dogma away by distorted colors and uses music. Then you could actually dispense with the blurred images "

" Open Hearts is also a film made according to the rules of Lars von Trier Dogma manifesto from 1995 .... OPEN HEARTS would be but also with all conventional means an unconventional, exciting, has become in many ways above average film, which it is desired many viewers. Because it is the exact inspection on seemingly familiar and mundane, the look for the drama of everyday life, not the shaky camera that these humane film about the implosion of an externally happy family on the no-longer - functioning of the usual everyday life in his home has made one of the most successful of all time. Because he has substance, Open Hearts has become a work of art in which many can find. What could be said about a movie better? "

"The story lives on its strong characters and is refined balanced. Susanne Bier can rely on one to the supporting roles outstanding acting ensemble cast that gives the problem a great credibility. The already at several festivals (Nordic Film Days in Lübeck, Toronto, San Sebastian ) excellent film is Denmark's Oscar nominee for best foreign language film. In the original, he is called " Elsker dig for evigt " - I love you forever. With this equally beautiful and idealistic title he is the subject, the fragility of happiness, even closer. In this film, it seems as fit eternity and happiness just do not mix. "

" At the end of each of the dummies who cheated in some of the others, of yourself - from life. The attempt to establish an order in it fails. Susanne Bier tells this story as if it were the most normal thing in the world. She is well, and sometimes it takes such a film to also to remind us. "