Fabricated Truth

Review:

Wilbur, no surprises there, is unhappy with life and wants to end it. This is rather dispiriting for his older brother Harbour, who loves him dearly and cares for him and who, after the death of their father and their used book shop failing, has enough problems of his own. Things appear to get better when he marries a customer, Alice, and together with her young daughter, they build a family of their own. But as is so often the case, things never turn out the way one expected. The Scottish film, directed by Danish filmmaker Lone Scherfig (recently in the news for directing An Education, which I had the pleasure to see at the Oslo Film Festival in November), is pretty much the epitome or quirky European indie cinema, a deft combination of a tragic story with comedic elements, carried by often unknown but powerful actors. The film is both amusing and moving, setting out what it attempts to do with ease and humour. Chances are, you have never heard of it and chances are you wouldn’t like it, but it’s definitely worth checking out.

Random Observations:

Wilbur Wants to Kill Himself at the IMDb

I saw the film many years ago and after watching the above mentioned An Education decided to revisit it, to see whether it was as good as I remembered it. And while that wasn’t the case, it was certainly enjoyable enough.

The script was written by Scherfig and Anders Thomas Jensen, the director of Adams æbler, who, judging from his résumé, was involved in the script writing of just about every major Danish movie of the last two decades.

A strange presence in the film is Mads Mikkelsen’s Danish doctor/psychiatrist Horst, who seems to serve as both a kind of deus ex machina and comic relief.