Gæsten / The Guest

The film opens with a foreshadowing image: a seatbelt hangs out of a moving car as loud music blares. Sound and light change as Karl and Emilie, a young couple, enter their room in a luxurious seaside hotel. The festivities surrounding the naming ceremony of their first son have begun. On the eve of the event, a small circle has gathered. Suddenly, an uninvited guest stands in the hotel foyer – Karl's mother, Vibeke. The camera becomes hectic, the editing becomes abrupt – tension is in the air. Vibeke's less-than-conventional manner stirs up the all too bourgeois setting. As Karl rifles Vibeke's handbag searching for medication, his sister insists that their mother is now psychologically stable. The siblings immediately fall back into old patterns of behaviour from their childhood, and repressed resentments boil to the surface. The situation threatens to get out of hand. In the process, we get to know Vibeke – a woman who refuses to be robbed of her self-image, who wants to live her own life – and who plays football in her underwear.