Something familiar this way comes in The Keeper of Lost Causes (Kvinden i buret), the latest Scandinavian crime drama in an increasingly long line following a template and formed from recognisable components. The involvement of screenwriter Nikolaj Arcel (the original The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) and director Mikkel Nørgaard (TV’s Borgen) helps explain that acquainted feeling, as does the feature’s genesis from author Jussi Adler-Olsen’s best-selling Department Q. book series. Also evident is that this is merely an introductory chapter in what may be an ongoing saga.
After a bungled stakeout leaves him injured and bumped down to closing cold cases, unsociable detective Carl Mørck (Nikolaj Lie Kaas, The Killing) takes a particular fancy to the plight of a formerly rising politician, Merete (Sonja Richter, The Miracle), widely thought to have leapt from a ferry five years earlier. With his new partner Assad (Fares Fares, Zero Dark Thirty), he tries to piece together her final moments. The more they become convinced something sinister is afoot, the more difficult their task proves, spanning dead ends and superiors determined to stop the investigation.
While heavily indebted to the new wave of Nordic noir overtaking screens, the tables have been turned ever so slightly in The Keeper of Lost Causes as the buddy cop odd couple seek the truth about their chosen case – not in details, but in focus. Two tweaks from the status quo set the film marginally apart from the masses, even as its narrative remains as perceptible and predictable as ever. Maintaining the structure of the source material, Arcel and Nørgaard reveal Merete’s life in tandem with Carl and Assad’s search, making the tale less a mystery and more an exercise in waiting for the police to catch up with the audience. Though robbing the feature of much of its tension despite obvious bait-and-switch tactics, the approach also serves the main thrust of the movie: establishing the main characters, their unlikely partnership and their against-the-odds area of inquiry.
Accordingly, performances are key in maintaining momentum, and in imbuing cookie-cutter protagonists with depth and nuance that sustains interest for a further instalment. As the high-strung, doggedly persistent fallen star with something to prove, Kaas brings more than the brooding of the requisite backstory of drinking and fractured relationships, while Fares perfects the requirements of the lighter, more relatable counterpart. Theirs is a bond that warms throughout the drama yet never overplays its contrasts, easily keeping viewers wanting more. In the film’s other half, Richter plays the victim with tenacity; however A Royal Affair’s Mikkel Boe Folsgaard elicits more intrigue as the left-behind younger brother.
An abundance of poise and polish sees the movie come together with the usual gorgeously gritty aesthetic, cinematographer Eric Kress’s (Nobel’s Last Will) imagery dwelling in muted shadows in the style of its thematic compatriots. The same mirroring of the requisite moody score echoes in the work of The Bridge’s Patrik Andrén, Uno Helmersson and Johan Söderqvist, sound and vision combining to tell of terrible deeds hiding beneath calm exteriors. Again, of course, it has all been seen before, a reality that just can’t be shaken. Entertaining enough while watching, but working best as a primer for more that may have better suited a television format, The Keeper of Lost Causes offers the expected crime thrills tempered by a little too much formula.
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
The Keeper of Lost Causes (Kvinden i buret)
Director: Mikkel Nørgaard
Denmark / Germany / Sweden, 2013, 97 mins
In general release: July 31
Distributor: Madman
Rating: TBC
Scandinavian Film Festival
www.scandinavianfilmfestival.com
Canberra: 8 – 20 July – Palace Electric
Sydney: 9 – 27 July – Palace Verona & Palace Norton St
Melbourne: 10 – 27 July – Palace Cinema Como, Palace Brighton Bay
Brisbane: 11 – 20 July – Palace Centro
Adelaide : 23 – 31 July – Palace Nova Eastend
Perth: 24 – 30 July – Cinema Paradiso
Byron Bay: 25 – 30 July – Palace Byron Bay
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