De nærmeste

Anne Sewitsky's Tabu (De nærmeste) is a deeply empathetic portrait of emotional need and blurred boundaries. Exploring the taboo of half-sibling romance, the film carefully navigates its provocative premise with more nuance than I expected.

Charlotte, plagued by abandonment issues, is drawn to her self-absorbed half-brother Henrik. Their relationship is less about shock value and more about two people reaching for connection in the wrong places. The film's real strength lies in Ine Marie Wilmann's quietly powerful performance, anchoring the narrative with vulnerability and emotional depth.

While the theme may stir discomfort, Tabu gladly isn't interested in moralizing. Instead, it offers an unusual family drama about desire.

Charlotte (played well by Ine Marie Wilmann) has a lot of mommy/daddy/brother/family issues, but she tries hard to hide them and live a normal life. As it turns out, the road to normalcy leads her to even weirder places. The plot is unimportant, the dialogue is not particularly inspiring either; and while the production value is also high, the atmosphere is what makes this movie good. Loneliness and emotional confusion are portrayed well; if you like movies about human weirdness you will probably like this one as well.

You may wonder about the rating - I didn't check why, but a drama usually does get lower ratings, because ... you know it's more story driven. This is both story driven and character driven though ... and there is a fair amount of sex/intercourse too. Which includes nudity and some violence - just making sure you are aware of that.

The acting is really good and while you may not feel any love for the characters or their behaviour (no pun intended), it is quite the intriguing story it tells us here. We know this is something that shouldn't be happening ... but we also know that certain things seem impossible to avoid ...

The plot is interesting, GSI isn't usually a subject that prompts an entire film and seeing the trailer only made me more interested.

The film however is kind of dull. I wanted to see more scenes with Charlotte and Henrik, to have them at least talk about what they're doing and the consequences.

The ending was atrocious.

The camera is constantly focused on the face of the heroine who repeats the same facial ticks and expressions no matter what the mise en scene or part of the "plot" is. It's thus hard to work out what the characterisation is supposed to convey in terms of the emotions and psychology of the character. Same goes for all the other characters. Interesting that the only two convincing scenes involve secondary characters, the ill dad in hospital and the best friend telling our heroine what she really feels about the friendship. The plot is contrived, the sex scenes verge on the sadistic and voyeuristic and the whole thing is just messy and unsure of where it's heading. The relationship between mother and daughter only hinted at, never fully fleshed out. One of those movies one watches compulsively because it's so bad. Very unlike stuff that normally comes out of Norway. Three stars for the gorgeous cinematography of the snowy urban scapes.