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Don’t be fooled by that angelic smile. Trine Dyrholm is ready to wreak havoc in “The Guest.”
In Mads Mengel’s drama – premiering at Karlovy Vary Film Festival – new father Karl (Simon Bennebjerg) is preparing for his
child’s christening. Everything goes according to plan – until Karl finds out his mother, Vibeke (Dyrholm), will be attending as well.
Sold by LevelK, it’s produced by Monolit Film.
“When she arrives, you wonder: ‘Why didn’t he invite her?!’ She’s good company and doesn’t give a fuck about what other people think,” Trine Dyrholm tells Variety.
But there’s more to Vibeke, and her children are bracing themselves for the worst.
“Sarah Kane’s play ‘4.48 Psychosis’ has followed me throughout my career: I did it when I was 30 and 40. At that time, I did a lot of research into mental illness,” says Dyrholm. Now, she wanted to focus on Vibeke’s longing instead.
“She has all these challenges too, but you also understand she really wants to be at this party. She wants to be close to her son and her grandchild.”
Mengel wanted Vibeke to “resist easy categorization.”
“People don’t usually arrive wearing a sign that tells us whether they deserve our trust. They can be warm, charming, polite – even loving – and still have a complicated past or have caused deep hurt.”
He notes: “The audience is constantly negotiating their feelings towards her, just as Karl is. I wanted viewers to question not only who Vibeke is, but also how quickly we judge other people.”
“The Guest” is “probably the most personal thing” he’s done so far, “but it’s not autobiographical.”
“What fascinated me wasn’t telling my own story, but exploring something many people can recognize: how our understanding of our parents changes as we grow older, especially when we start our own families. I was interested in that moment when certainty begins to crack. When the people we’ve spent years judging slowly become more complicated and human.”
He grew up watching Dyrholm, known for Oscar-winning “In a Better World” – recently, she led “The Girl with the Needle” and “Birthday Girl”– and “couldn’t have asked for a more generous collaborator” as a debuting director.
“To me, she’s simply one of Denmark’s greatest actors, and her range feels almost limitless. What makes her so extraordinary isn’t just her technical skill. It’s her deep understanding of people.”
She’s also “remarkably unafraid.”
“Even after such an accomplished career, she still approaches every role with genuine curiosity. She’s interested in exploring, taking risks and discovering something new about a character – and perhaps about people in general. That was exactly what Vibeke required.”
Dyrholm notes: “Karl has now chosen this new family, and Vibeke goes: ‘This is not you.’ In a way, she’s right. This film is called ‘The Guest’ and you could argue that Karl is also a guest in his own life.”
“For these two, everything used to be about their mum. His sister [played by Josephine Park] can’t be present in her own life because she needs to take care of her. Vibeke is a symbol of this family and of love and sorrow. She’s a symbol of all the struggles you have to overcome to be free.”
Dyrholm was very moved by the finished film.
“I think it succeeds in making it universal, and showing how we struggle in trying to love each other and cope with each other.”
“I’m very lucky to still have my mom, but we’ve always had conflicts. That’s just how it is with moms. That’s why I told my son: ‘I’ll pay for your shrink now, because I’m sure there will be some issues’,” she laughs.
“Vibeke was all alone with these kids. She had them when she was very young, and it’s been a tough life. She’s done what she could. We try to get away from our legacy, but the older we get, the more we embrace it.”
A lot happens over these few days. But there’s still a lot to be done to mend this family, says Mengel.
“I don’t believe that the deepest emotional wounds can be neatly resolved over the course of a weekend. That would have felt dishonest to me.”
“What interested me was something smaller, but perhaps more meaningful: the possibility that people can take a single step towards each other. Life rarely gives us perfect endings, but it does occasionally give us the chance to begin again.”
