4/5

Review by John P. Harvey.

In the five years since the death of their mother, brothers Karl (Sebastian Jessen), Lukas (Andreas Jessen), and Oskar (Ari Alexander), all very different, have grown apart from one another and have seen little of their father, Vagn (Lars Brygmann).

Oskar’s loss has affected him so deeply that Karl has taken responsibility for helping him, by urging him to get busy.  Vagn has kept his wife’s memory alive by burying himself in his baking work; but circumstances coalesce to have the brothers return home for a quick visit, whereupon they find that the bakery is in dire straits.

But their joint efforts to help their father may be the salvation of them all.

Despite having as its background the grief of such profound shared loss, Better Times nonetheless offers a profoundly optimistic view of how we may comfort and help rebuild one another through such times, and its many moments of fraternal love, teasing, rivalry, and shared understanding and misunderstanding will strike a chord with anyone.  With Brygmann bringing his usual easy bonhomie to the role of a husband himself still grieving, and with Johanne Milland as Oskar’s old school chum Rikke introducing an element of romance, the film has all-round appeal as a good-humoured journey from brokenness to mending.

Screening at Palace cinemas.