{"id":946,"date":"2026-07-06T17:05:27","date_gmt":"2026-07-06T12:05:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=946"},"modified":"2026-07-06T17:05:27","modified_gmt":"2026-07-06T12:05:27","slug":"trine-dyrholm-holds-court-as-a-mother-with-issues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=946","title":{"rendered":"Trine Dyrholm Holds Court As A Mother With Issues"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto     \">\n\t\u201cFamily is family,\u201d notes a character at the beginning of Danish director Mads Mengel\u2019s low-key but emotionally gripping three-hander <em><a href=\"https:\/\/deadline.com\/tag\/the-guest\/\" id=\"auto-tag_the-guest\" data-tag=\"the-guest\">The Guest<\/a><\/em>, at a point in time when the biggest problem facing Karl (Simon Bennebjerg) and Emilie (Mette Klakstein Wiberg) \u2014 the proud middle-class parents of newborn baby Elliot \u2014 is whether to order asparagus or salmon as the starter option for their child\u2019s lavish christening party. What could possibly go wrong? We\u2019re about to find out; not only is there a clue in the title, Mengel also gives us a tantalisingly brief close-up shot of a moving car, the safety belt hanging out of the door.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto     \">\n\tThe guest is Karl\u2019s mother Vibeke (<a href=\"https:\/\/deadline.com\/tag\/trine-dyrholm\/\" id=\"auto-tag_trine-dyrholm\" data-tag=\"trine-dyrholm\">Trine Dyrholm<\/a>), a perfectly affable middle-aged woman who seems a little bawdy in her sense of humor and is certainly more bohemian than her son and his super-straight in-laws. Everybody takes to her instantly, listening raptly to her spooky story about hitch-hiking with a madman and taking her talk about joining a choir and studying Strindberg at college at face value, a long-standing pursuit that her daughter (and Karl\u2019s sister) Rikke (Josephine Park) prefers to take with a pinch of salt. Karl, however, is on edge, and so is Mengel\u2019s restless hand-held camera, which floats unsteadily and closes in cautiously on significant micro-moments. Something is not quite right.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto     \">\n\tOr rather some<em>one<\/em>, and that person is Vibeke. In the grand tradition of Danish cinema, no good can come of a get-together, and though there\u2019s nothing quite as calamitous as Thomas Vinterberg\u2019s 1998 film <em>Festen<\/em> (<em>The Celebration<\/em>) \u2014 which, coincidentally, featured Dyrholm in a supporting role \u2014 <em>The Guest<\/em> is a similar study of a family in freefall after its biggest skeleton comes tumbling unexpectedly from the closet. That secret is Vibeke\u2019s fragile mental health, which Karl has been dealing with simply by ignoring both it and her, a factor that will later explain his decision to embrace a mundane life as a manager with the car-hire company owned by his father-in-law (<em>The Boss of it All<\/em>\u2019s Peter Gantzler).<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto     \">\n\tRikke, on the other hand, has a different coping mechanism. Like Karl, she is also in denial, but of a different kind. \u201cShe\u2019s over the top,\u201d she snaps. \u201cThat\u2019s her personality, not her illness \u2014 that\u2019s how she <em>is<\/em>.\u201d Rikke, though, is much closer to her mother than Karl is, and that familiarity \u2014 she sees her every other day \u2014 means that her complacency could be just as damaging as Karl\u2019s paranoia. This all-or-nothing tension is at the core of Mengel\u2019s drama; if Vibeke is off her meds, how bad can it get? We get a taste of that when, during the christening ceremony, Vibeke plunges the baby into the sea, much to everyone\u2019s alarm.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto     \">\n\tThe beauty of Mengel\u2019s film is that the horror of the situation is always in the anticipation, mirroring the awful reality of living with mental illness. Vibeke\u2019s condition is never revealed; while it is certainly mentioned that she was once sectioned and continues to have \u201cepisodes\u201d, that\u2019s not what <em>The Guest<\/em> is about. <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto     \">\n\tIn that respect, Dyrholm has certainly read the memo and plays Vibeke accordingly; we see her as she sees herself \u2014 a woman who just wants to enjoy life, who wants to <em>please<\/em>, an emotion encompassed quite perfectly in a scene where Vibeke stumbles on a raucous teenage party. She wants that anarchy in her life and doesn\u2019t understand why her own kids turned out to be so boring. Why <em>shouldn\u2019t<\/em> she play football in her underwear while her pants dry?<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto     \">\n\tDenmark has a seemingly inexhaustible supply of acting talent, and <em>The Guest<\/em> is proof of that. Though Dyrholm is undoubtedly the main attraction \u2014 she and Sandra H\u00fcller are currently way ahead of the pack when it comes to actresses who could possibly succeed Isabelle Huppert as the queen of European cinema \u2014 the terrific younger cast are more than a match for such a heavyweight. Both Bennebjerg and Park play the history of the situation and not the moment; they know what <em>could<\/em> happen, and their attempts to stop it are just as psychotic, including several attempts to spike her drinks with sleeping pills.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto     \">\n\tOblivious to all this is baby Elliot, who has all this to look forward to in later life, assuming Vibeke makes it (and there are no guarantees). The unspoken question is, what will he make of it all? (If the matter is ever discussed.) Will he turn out like his father, his auntie or, god forbid, his grandmother? As the film says up front, \u201cFamily is family\u201d \u2014 and, like it or not, nobody gets a choice in the matter.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-margin-lr-auto     \">\n\t<strong>Title:<\/strong> The Guest<br \/><strong>Festival:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/deadline.com\/tag\/karlovy-vary\/\" id=\"auto-tag_karlovy-vary\" data-tag=\"karlovy-vary\">Karlovy Vary<\/a> (Crystal Globe Competition)<br \/><strong>Director:<\/strong> Mads Mengel<br \/><strong>Screenwriters:<\/strong> Mads Mengel, Christian Bengtson<br \/><strong>Cast:<\/strong> Trine Dyrholm, Simon Bennebjerg, Josephine Park, Mette Klakstein Wiberg, Peter Gantzler<br \/><strong>Sales:<\/strong> LevelK<br \/><strong>Running time:<\/strong> 1 hr 40 mins<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cFamily is family,\u201d notes a character at the beginning of Danish director Mads Mengel\u2019s low-key but emotionally gripping three-hander The Guest, at a point in time when the biggest problem facing Karl (Simon Bennebjerg) and Emilie (Mette Klakstein Wiberg) \u2014 the proud middle-class parents of newborn baby Elliot \u2014 is whether to order asparagus or&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":947,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/deadline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/TheGuest_PressStill03_@MonolitFilm.jpg?w=1024","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-946","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pics-news"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/946","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=946"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/946\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/947"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=946"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=946"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=946"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}