The Guilty (2018 film)

The Guilty (Danish: Den skyldige) is a 2018 Danish crime thriller film co-written and directed by Gustav Möller, his debut film.[3] It was screened in the World Cinema Dramatic Competition section at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival.[4] The film was distributed in the U.S. by Magnolia Pictures.[5] It was selected as the Danish submission for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 91st Academy Awards,[6][7][8] making the December shortlist.[9]

The Guilty
Theatrical release poster
DanishDen skyldige
Directed byGustav Möller
Produced byLina Flint
Screenplay by
  • Gustav Möller
  • Emil Nygaard Albertsen
Starring
Music by
  • Carl Coleman
  • Caspar Hesselager
CinematographyJasper J. Spanning
Edited byCarla Luff
Production
companies
Distributed byNordisk Film Distribution
Release date
  • 21 January 2018 (2018-01-21) (Sundance)
  • 14 June 2018 (2018-06-14) (Denmark)
Running time
85 minutes
CountryDenmark
LanguageDanish
Box office$3.4 million[1][2]

Plot

Asger Holm, a Copenhagen police officer awaiting a hearing for shooting and killing a 19-year-old man, is assigned to answer emergency calls at the Emergency East desk. On the evening before the hearing, he receives a call from a woman named Iben Østergård, who does not say she has an emergency and acts as if she is talking to a child. Initially about to hang up, Asger guesses the distressed Iben is not alone and asks her yes and no questions; she discreetly reveals she has been abducted but explicitly mentions a white van. Tracing the call by the nearest cellphone tower, Asger calls the North Zealand station to tell them to look for a white van driving north. The North Zealand dispatcher tells him this is not enough information and a licence plate number and specific location are required. Asger talks to the North Zealand patrol car, who pull over a light-coloured van but let it go when no woman is found inside.

Becoming absorbed in the case, Asger looks up information about Iben Østergård and finds a home telephone number, calling it. Iben's six-year-old daughter Mathilde answers. Mathilde says her father Michael Berg was at the house, despite being separated from Iben, and drives a white van. Michael had gone into the room of Mathilde's baby brother Oliver and shouted, apparently at Oliver, Mathilde says. Michael then grabbed Iben and left with her. Mathilde also gives Asger her father's phone number. Asger tells Mathilde to go look after her baby brother and calls North Zealand to have police sent over to Iben's house to check on Mathilde and Oliver; he learns Michael has a criminal record.

Night shift arrives and though technically off the job, Asger moves into a separate room to continue following Iben's case. Intermittently, Asger speaks again to Iben, who says she does not want to be locked up. He also speaks to the police at the Østergård house, who find Mathilde is covered in blood. The officers check Oliver's room and find the baby has been cut open and is deceased. Asger is devastated, and asks his colleague Rashid to break into Michael's house for clues as to his destination. We learn that Asger and Rashid conspired to give false testimony at the hearing, which worries Rashid. After deliberating, Asger phones Michael's number and argues with him, with Asger shouting Michael should be executed.

The van is heading to Elsinore, and Asger speaks again to Iben. Worried that Michael might kill Iben, Asger instructs Iben to hit Michael with a brick. Iben says Oliver is fine now and no longer crying. Asger asks her what she means, and Iben says Oliver had snakes in his stomach and was crying, so she cut them out to help him. The call is disconnected, leaving Asger in shock. Asger receives a call from Rashid at Michael's house, who finds records showing Michael lost visitation rights due to his criminal record, while Iben spent time in a psychiatric hospital in Elsinore. Asger realizes Michael was taking Iben to the hospital because she unknowingly killed their son. He tells Rashid not to lie at the hearing and calls Michael again, who says Iben hit him and escaped. Asger receives another call from Iben, who is about to jump off a bridge, after realizing she killed her son. He confesses to her he shot a man and it was not in self-defense, but he says unlike him he knows Iben did not mean to harm anyone. With the noise of police officers approaching, Asger urges her to surrender to them. He speaks again to North Zealand, who confirm they have Iben and congratulate him on his work. He gets up from his desk and slowly walks away while his colleagues, who heard his confession to Iben, watch in disbelief.

Cast
  • Jakob Cedergren as Asger Holm
  • Jessica Dinnage as Iben Østergård (voice)
  • Omar Shargawi as Rashid (voice)
  • Johan Olsen as Michael Berg (voice)
  • Katinka Evers-Jahnsen as Mathilde Østergård (voice)
  • Jacob Lohmann as Bo (voice)
  • Simon Bennebjerg as Nikolaj Jensen (voice)
  • Laura Bro as Tanja Brix (voice)
  • Morten Thunbo as Torben

Production

The genesis of the film was a YouTube clip of a kidnapped woman calling an emergency dispatcher while her kidnapper sat nearby. Möller was struck by how much an audio clip could convey on its own with no visual accompaniment. “It felt like I was seeing images just listening to sound," he said. "It felt like I had seen this woman; I had an idea of the car she was sitting in and the road they were driving on.” Another influence was the podcast Serial, about the 1999 murder of a Maryland student. “With every episode I got new information about the people involved and the places and occurrences. With every episode my image of these people changed."[10] Möller and co-writer Emil Nygaard Albertsen followed up by doing research at Danish dispatch centers, The characters emerged from there, including the idea of the main character being a police officer under investigation, who had been reassigned from the field to desk duty.[11]

The research also inspired the intentionally drab set. "When I got out to the first dispatch center, I had expected something much more high tech," Möller said. "And then I saw this room that looked like a shitty office and I loved that. I loved that contrast of these cops dealing with life and death and they're sitting in this boring, kind of dirty room. So that's what I wanted in the production design."[11]

Confining the film to a police dispatch center helped limit the budget to a frugal €500,000 (US$570,671) while forcing the filmmakers to work more creatively.[10] Möller and his director of photography, Jasper Spanning, divided the script into eight segments, changing the camera lenses and cinematic approach for each. The screen time for each segment ultimately ranged from 5 to 35 minutes. Filming employed a three-camera setup and took 13 days. Post-production sound editing took another eight weeks.[11]

After The Guilty's debut, Möller received requests for remake rights from around the world, but declined personal involvement in any of them, preferring instead to work on new projects.[10]

Reception

Critical reception

As of June 2020, the film holds a 97% approval rating on the review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes based on 114 reviews, and an average rating of 7.94/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Sleek, well-acted, and intelligently crafted, The Guilty is a high-concept thriller that wrings maximum impact out of a handful of basic—and effective—ingredients."[12] Metacritic assigned the film a normalized score of 83 out of 100, based on 23 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".[13]

Accolades
Award Date of ceremony Category Recipient(s) Result Ref(s)
Austin Film Critics Association 7 January 2019 Best Foreign Language Film Nominated [14]
Bodil Awards 2 March 2019 Best Danish Film Gustav Möller Nominated [15][16]
Best Actor Jakob Cedergren Won
Blockbuster Talent Gustav Möller Won
National Board of Review 27 November 2018 Top 5 Foreign Language Films Won [17]
Satellite Awards 17 February 2019 Best Foreign Language Film Nominated [18]
St. Louis Film Critics Association 16 December 2018 Best Foreign Language Film Nominated [19]
Robert Awards February 2019
 Best Danish Film Gustav Möller Won
Best Actor Jakob Cedergren Won [20]
Best Director Gustav Möller Won

Remake
Main article: The Guilty (upcoming film)

In 2018 it was announced that Nine Stories and Jake Gyllenhaal had bought the American rights to The Guilty with Gyllenhaal set to star.[21] In 2020 it was announced the movie will be directed by Antoine Fuqua and be adapted by Nic Pizzolatto. The movie is scheduled to a be shot at a single Los Angeles location sometime in November[22] In September 2020, Netflix acquired worldwide distribution rights for the film for $30 million.[23] Peter Sarsgaard, Ethan Hawke, and Riley Keough were confirmed to join the cast.[24]

See also

References
  1. "The Guilty". Box Office Mojo. IMDb. Retrieved 19 November 2018.
  2. "Den Skyldige". The Numbers. Retrieved 19 November 2018.
  3. Naderzad, Ali. ""The Guilty," from Denmark, goes to the Oscars". Screen Comment. Retrieved 21 September 2018.
  4. "Sundance Film Festival Unveils Full 2018 Features Lineup". Variety. 29 November 2017. Retrieved 1 January 2018.
  5. Lang, Brent (23 January 2018). "Sundance: Magnolia Buys 'The Guilty'". Variety. Retrieved 23 January 2018.
  6. "Danmarks bedste bud på en Oscar: En nervepirrende thriller med titlen: 'Den skyldige'". Politiken. 20 September 2018. Retrieved 20 September 2018.
  7. Holdsworth, Nick (20 September 2018). "Oscars: Denmark Selects 'The Guilty' for Foreign-Language Category". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 20 September 2018.
  8. Abbatescianni, Davide (21 September 2018). "The Guilty enters the Oscars race for Denmark, Woman at War for Iceland". Cineuropa. Retrieved 21 September 2018.
  9. "Academy Unveils 2019 Oscar Shortlists". The Hollywood Reporter. 17 December 2018. Retrieved 18 December 2018.
  10. Meza, Ed (13 August 2018). "'The Guilty's' Gustav Möller Talks Remakes, Suspense and 'Dog Day Afternoon'". Variety. Retrieved 26 August 2020.
  11. Buder, Emily (29 March 2018). "'The Guilty': The Pulse-Pounding Crime Thriller Set on One Side of a Phone Call". No Film School.
  12. "The Guilty (Den skyldige) (2018)". Rotten Tomatoes. Fandango Media. Retrieved 20 June 2020.
  13. "The Guilty Reviews". Metacritic. CBS Interactive. Retrieved 27 December 2018.
  14. Whittaker, Richard (28 December 2018). "Austin Film Critics Release 2018 Awards Nominee Lists". Austin Chronicle. Archived from the original on 31 December 2018. Retrieved 31 December 2018.
  15. "Bodilprisen 2019 – og de nominerede er…". www.bodilprisen.dk. 11 January 2019. Retrieved 25 February 2019.
  16. Wind-Friis, Lea (2 March 2019). "Voldtægtsfilm af debutant blev den store vinder til Bodil-festen". Politiken (in Danish). Retrieved 2 March 2019.
  17. Sharf, Zack (27 November 2018). "National Board of Review 2018 Winners: 'Green Book' Named Best Film, Lady Gaga Best Actress". Indiewire. Archived from the original on 27 November 2018. Retrieved 27 November 2018.
  18. "2018 Nominations Ballot" (PDF). International Press Academy. 28 November 2018. Archived (PDF) from the original on 30 November 2018. Retrieved 2 December 2018.
  19. "Annual StLFCA Awards". St. Louis Film Critics Association. 9 December 2018. Archived from the original on 10 December 2018. Retrieved 11 December 2018.
  20. "Oscar-shortlisted The Guilty wins big at Danish Robert Awards". www.dfi.dk.
  21. Kroll, Justin (10 December 2018). "Jake Gyllenhaal to Star in Remake of Denmark's Oscar Entry 'The Guilty' (EXCLUSIVE)". Variety. Retrieved 12 January 2019.
  22. Fleming, Mike Jr. (15 September 2020). "'Southpaw' Duo Jake Gyllenhaal & Antoine Fuqua To Re-Team On Tense Thriller 'The Guilty'".
  23. Fleming, Mike Jr. (23 September 2020). "Netflix Lands Jake Gyllenhaal-Antoine Fuqua Package 'The Guilty' In $30 Million WW Deal".
  24. N'Duka, Amanda (13 November 2020). "'The Guilty': Ethan Hawke, Peter Sarsgaard, Riley Keough & More Join Jake Gyllenhaal In Antoine Fuqua-Directed Netflix Drama".
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