The Girl with the Needle, 2024.
Directed by Magnus von Horn.
Starring Vic Carmen Sonne, Trine Dyrholm, Besir Zeciri, Joachim Fjelstrup, Tessa Hoder, Ava Knox Martin, Ari Alexander, Søren Sætter-Lassen, Agnieszka Przyborowska-Mitrosz, Magnus von Horn, and Benedikte Hansen.
SYNOPSIS:
Copenhagen 1919: A young worker finds herself unemployed and pregnant. She meets Dagmar, who runs an underground adoption agency. A strong connection grows but her world shatters when she stumbles on the shocking truth behind her work.
Life is rough for Vic Carmen Sonne’s factory worker Karoline: Her husband hasn’t come home from the Great War, and she gets kicked out of her home. Some good fortune temporarily arrives in the form of her boss (Joachim Fjelstrup) as they connect and decide to marry upon her getting pregnant. Then that luck once again reverses, with her boss’s mother insistent that he is not allowed to marry such a lovely commoner, meaning that she has to either raise the child by herself or secretly perform an abortion. During all of this, her husband has also returned with a severe facial disfigurement from the war.
Coming from co-writer/director Magnus von Horn (penning the screenplay alongside Line Langebek Knudsen) and shot in gorgeous black and white photography (courtesy of Michal Dymek) that adds to the bleakness on display here, The Girl with the Needle is a slow-burn harrowing watch the likes most might not recover from. I don’t say that lightly, as I tend to hate hyperbole, but this is one extremely disturbing story. Here’s one way to put it: the self-attempted abortion scene with the titular needle might not even crack the top 10 for the most unsettling, hardest-to-watch moments here. Vic Carmen Sonne is phenomenal in the lead role, convincingly conveying a fluctuating state of feelings while believably expressing pure disgust and shock when it’s time.
After encountering Dagmar (Trine Dyrholm), a candy shop owner secretly running an operation to sell off unwanted babies to families of lawyers and doctors who can’t have children on their own, Karoline decides that she can assist this woman and potentially make some money as a wet-nurse. Dagmar also happens to be raising a young daughter (that may or may not be biologically hers), a child that is clearly off and possibly evil (not in a supernatural way, but human cruelty.) Meanwhile, Karoline has lost all interest in her husband, who might be as unloved and unwanted as some of these babies, quickly resorting to dehumanizing carnival freak show work.
There is no way to prepare anyone for the horrors Magnus von Horn has in store, but it can be said that it is apparently based on actual events. The Girl with the Needle builds to some truly nightmarish and unbelievably sickening material, smartly knowing what not to show and how the sounds of such grim acts alone can cause a pit in one’s stomach to sink deeper. For clarity’s sake, this is not trashy misery indulgence for the sake of it; these events reflect an oppressive place in time while getting at how and why something like this happened, even allowing one character to try rationalizing their twisted actions. It’s unforgettably rattling but vital.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★ ★
Robert Kojder is a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association and the Critics Choice Association. He is also the Flickering Myth Reviews Editor. Check here for new reviews, follow my Twitter or Letterboxd, or email me at MetalGearSolid719@gmail.com
