Adam's Apples

Adam, a neo-Nazi gang leader, is paroled into a rehabilitation programme at a church. Ivan, the priest running it, is relentlessly optimistic and gives Adam a task: bake an apple pie. Adam decides instead to break Ivan's faith. There is plenty to work with, since the priest has a brain tumour, was beaten as a child and has a disabled son. Adam throws each of these in his face. Anders Thomas Jensen wrote and directed. Ulrich Thomsen plays Adam Pedersen and Mads Mikkelsen plays Ivan Fjeldsted. The film is built directly on the Book of Job, with everything that happens to Ivan replaying that test. At the end there is a coincidence that looks like a miracle: a stray bullet removes Ivan's tumour. Rotten Tomatoes sits at 70 percent, with critics describing it as a dark biblical allegory that is by turns funny and shocking. It won Best Danish Film at the Robert Awards and took the Melies d'Or. Who it is for: viewers who like Danish black comedy and uncomfortable comedies written about faith. Who it is not for: anyone unwilling to have hate symbols and racist violence sit in the same sentence as a joke. The film keeps that balance deliberately dangerous.