Start 2016 as you mean to go on - spending your time and money on quality movies. And the pick of the post-Christmas bunch to date is this one, a wonderfully acted, conscience-poking study which takes us from battle zones to suburbia and back again. It's Denmark's submission for the Best Foreign Film Oscar, and it deserves to be on that shortlist next Thursday.
Borgen (and soon-to-be Game of Thrones) star Asbæk plays Claus Pedersen, a Danish commander in Afghanistan who's trying to hold his men - and himself - together following the death of a comrade. Back home in Copenhagen, wife Maria (Novotny) is attempting to keep the best side out for Claus and their three children with the dread growing by the day. Brief phone calls are keeping the family going, but soon husband and wife's relationship will be tested in a way that neither Claus nor Maria could have imagined.
Every time you see a great subtitled film you wonder how much other stuff from that country you're missing out on, and A War puts that thought on the treadmill from virtually the get-go - seeking out writer-director Lindholm's 2012 film A Hijack (also starring Asbæk) and binge-watching his series Borgen will be a priority for many after this.
On screen here Lindholm mixes combat chronicle, long-distance love story and courtroom drama without short-changing any of those genres, leaving you wanting more of each. The chemistry between Asbæk and Novotny is wonderful, while their co-stars remind us that there's a world of great actors out there that we know next to nothing about. Their performances, and the flawed humanity they so expertly convey, stay with you long after the closing credits, as does the question of what you would do if placed in the same situation as their characters.
There are no easy answers.
Harry Guerin
