After a car accident robs Ida (Sandra Guldberg Kampp) of her mother, she is sent to live with her estranged aunt Bodil (Sidse Babett Knudsen) and her cousins. It’s a robustly affectionate household that helps heal the scars of grief. Ida soon finds herself adopted as a kind of mascot by her older male cousins. But with entrance into the inner circle of the family comes certain expectations – that Ida will abide by the family codes, and that she will step up to duties in the family business: extortion, debt collection, violent intimidation.
This lean Danish drama is not wholly original – David Michôd’s Animal Kingdom is an obvious comparison – but it’s a tense, suspenseful piece of storytelling and a showcase for a treacherously mercurial performance from Knudsen as the fearsome matriarch.
