The One and Only

Susanne Bier before America, and before the hard dramas around Dogme. The idea was hers, the screenplay by Kim Fupz Aakeson; she wanted to revive Danish romantic comedy and mixed the Hollywood screwball tradition with local material like adultery and infertility. It became the most-watched Danish film in twenty years; a fifth of the population went to see it, making it the third biggest box-office success of the 1990s there. It won both the Robert and the Bodil as best film of 1999. Sus, whose marriage is not working, and Niller, a handyman whose own relationship is falling apart, cross paths. Both are with the wrong people in the wrong lives, and the film treats this not as tragedy but as an everyday malfunction. Sidse Babett Knudsen plays Sus, with Niels Olsen, Søs Egelind and Sofie Gråbøl. Who it is for: viewers curious about Scandinavian romantic comedy and about Bier's register before it turned heavy. Who it is not for: anyone expecting drama at the scale of Brothers or In a Better World. This is light, and its final stretch surrenders entirely to the template.