With Jim Sabatini

Terribly Happy

Rated: No rating
Reviewed by: Jim
Release date: February 5, 2010	Released by: Oscilloscope

This tidy, noir-ish Danish thriller concerns a transferred crestfallen Copenhagen police officer.

Terribly Happy (in Danish with English subtitles) stars Jakob Cedergren as the cop Robert Hanson who has gone through a lot in a bustling urban sector.

The peculiar denizens who have their own modus operandi aren't receptive to this man with a past. If they're not enjoying their liquor, their brand of a neighborhood watch makes it difficult for petty offenders to thrive in their dreary environment.

A tattered blond, Ingerlise, a fine Lene Maria Christensen, seems unable to get away from her tough, cowboy-ish husband. But, she doesn't find it difficult to make her feelings about the handsome, initially reluctant Robert.

Director Henrik Ruben Genz and his actors deliver on the sensible, stealthy script with Cedegren and Christensen, in particular, having a palpable rapport and unusually, yet effectively understated. Even a master like Alfred Hitchcock would like the diverting, lulling tactics by the filmmakers which, in mostly taut fashion, gravitates to a rather impudent consuming climax.