How do you survive when you are a marked man? How do you convince someone who already has the answer they’re looking for? How do you overcome a label and a conviction that’s gone viral? How do you defend against something that cannot be proven and is already a given?
Those are the fundamental questions behind the powerful Danish drama “The Hunt.” A man is accused of pedophilia after a young girl gets upset with him and tells a white lie she can’t pull back. Immediately the world unravels around him and the word has been spoken. Thomas Vinterberg’s film is a practical examination of human nature in a not unlikely circumstance.
The poor soul at its center is Lucas (Mads Mikkelsen, best known to American audiences as Le Chiffre from “Casino Royale”), a loveable kindergarten aid and divorcee. His son Marcus (Lasse Fogelstrøm) begs to be with his father during Lucas’s custody battle, he’s got a new girlfriend in his colleague Nadja (Alexandra Rapaport), and his relationship with his best friend Theo (Thomas Bo Larsen) has never been stronger.
He’s got a good life, and everyone loves Lucas. But Theo’s youngest daughter Klara (Annika Wedderkopp) loves him just a little more. Lucas walks her home from kindergarten, helps her when she gets lost and lets her walk his dog Fanny. During playtime one afternoon, Klara innocently steals a kiss from Lucas and makes him a heart out of beads. He plays the parent and says she should give that kiss to one of the boys, but instead she gets angry and tells the teacher “Lucas is ugly and has a penis.” She then says Lucas’s stands up straight after she gets the wrong idea elsewhere, and Lucas’s fate is sealed.
You can predict exactly where this is going and the many ways it may affect his life and work, but what’s skillful about “The Hunt” is how much Vinterberg keeps off screen. Lucas is kept in the dark about the details, left to speculate about who said what, and we’re mostly in the same boat. The screenplay by Tobias Lindholm (“A Hijacking”) excludes the petty gossiping and whispering. We don’t see a montage of kids coming forward claiming the same lie, we don’t get many of the graphic details about what Lucas did or didn’t do, and it doesn’t fall into the stupid-parent trap either.
We also have no doubts that Lucas is innocent. Vinterberg makes this a movie strictly about a man accused. Vinterberg explores how merely Lucas’s presence leads people to fury and even violence. But mostly “The Hunt” embodies the lonely futility of such a condition. The film finds its only real slice of quiet justice when Lucas marches back into a grocery store he’s just been beaten and thrown out of and calmly buys his groceries anyway.
Mikkelsen plays Lucas with quiet intensity, maintaining his reserve and his cool long before another actor would lose it. We’ll see that in two of his son Marcus’s outbursts, and Mikkelsen makes the resolve he displays a measure of his character.
“The Hunt” also has a wonderfully pastoral look, complete with autumn scenery and earthy hues. Moments resemble Malick-esque frivolity, and the film feels grounded and realistic without losing its glossy presence and stature.
Keeping that solid, upstanding look and dignity is precisely the point of “The Hunt.” It’s a modest and minimally melodramatic film that sees how we can all so easily become marked men.
3 ½ stars
Good review Brian. It’s a brutally honest movie that points the finger at us when all is said and done, and rightfully so, too. Because, if you think about it, how would we all respond to hearing the same thing the people in this community did? Would be worse, more sympathetic, or exactly the same?