Speed Walking

A small Danish town, 1976. Martin is fourteen and preparing for his confirmation, the formal passage from boy to man. Just then his mother dies suddenly. His father and older brother disappear into their own grief and nobody can say anything to him. The boy is caught between a funeral and adolescence: drink, parties and first experiences on one side, and on the other a death nobody discusses. His relationships with his friend Kim and his girlfriend Kristine also change over that same summer. Niels Arden Oplev directs this Danish film of a hundred and eight minutes, with Villads Bøye as Martin and Sidse Babett Knudsen and Pilou Asbæk in the cast. The title comes from the walking event Martin does at school: half running, without running.