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Critics Consensus: In a Better World is a sumptuous melodrama that tackles some rather difficult existential and human themes.
Critic Consensus: In a Better World is a sumptuous melodrama that tackles some rather difficult existential and human themes.
All Critics (120) | Top Critics (33) | Fresh (93) | Rotten (27)
I wished I liked it more. But, for all its good points, this film is a high-concept contrivance of the sort Bier turns out easily, and looks like a faintly preposterous cine-soap opera for haemophiliac-hearted liberals.
True, the resolutions on offer seem conventionally pat, yet the tough questions stay with you in an absorbing drama which pushes the viewer's buttons with effective intelligence.
Susanne Bier's latest meditation on grief and the boundaries of family -- which won this year's foreign-film Oscar -- is a tough piece of work, subtle in some ways, obvious in others, viscerally affecting throughout.
Simply put, this would be a better world if there were more films like In a Better World.
Despite some weaknesses as both a film and a parable, "In a Better World" is a potent provocation.
An ethically ambitious, morally thoughtful - and deeply vexing - drama about the fragility of civil order and the menace of the lawless.
To the North American viewer, Danish director Susanne Bier's films come as a revelation.
An attempt to grapple with the nuances of good and evil and examine the limitations of virtue in the face of pure emotion
The performances and strong direction make light of some clunky plot devices.
Despite it's heavy-handedness in the last act, Susanne Bier directs with fascinating awareness of her characters and with grace for the moments of compassion between two families trying to understand how humanity can be so merciless.
...the two child performances are the emotional lynchpin of the movie.
Although this being a film by Susanne Bier, there is unfortunately a good measure of unneeded melodrama stirred in to trivialize the very important thematic concerns.
A challenging meditation on how hurt-induced revenge and the intention of getting rid of a menace can overlap when someone looks for a motive to get even. It could have been much better, though, had it not moved its focus to a minor subject (in comparison) in the third act.
Super Reviewer
Two boys attempt to define masculinity in response to their respective family dramas. This Danish film is oddly both ambitious and contained. Its plot centers around only two families, one wracked by divorce, the other by death, but as the two male children of these families mature, we see that they're struggling with deep and difficult questions. What constitutes "being a man?" What examples do fathers and mothers provide their kids? Where is the line between being a disciplinarian and being a child's friend? What are parents' roles in preventing violence? These are ambitious ethical questions the plot brings up, but as a result of the film's reach philosophically, the plot starts to suffer when each of the film's conflicts resolve too conveniently. Overall, this is a fine, ambitious, and interesting film until its pat conclusion.
Susanne Bier is one of the greatest directors ever. Simple as that. Her films deal with issues, but always with a fresh perspective. In A Better World has a young boy called Christian who has just lost his mother, return to Denmark. He joins a new school where he soon makes friends with a boy who is being bullied. Christian allows his anger to take hold, and events soon spiral out of control. The theme of bullying may seem like something best saved for after school specials, but Bier shows bullying in all its forms, from the playground, to grown ups, to African warlords. Questioning anger, revenge, and human rights, makes this a multi-layered film which is just begging for discussion. The performances are magnificent across the board and each character has a very well structured arc. With so much going on it would be easy for the film to trip over itself, but it never does. Touching, inspirational, and quite possibly life changing. In A Better World could honestly make the world a better place.
A awesome film about a doctor who lives in Denmark but spends most of his life in Africa at a refugee camp. We see his life at home, his son and wife's dealing with life and him being gone and him fighting the local war lord who is raiding villages and taking children for his own little military. 4 Stars. 6-19-12
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