The Guilty (2018 film)

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The Guilty
Theatrical release poster
DanishDen skyldige
Directed byGustav Möller
Written by
  • Gustav Möller
  • Emil Nygaard Albertsen
Produced byLina Flint
Starring
CinematographyJasper J. Spanning
Edited byCarla Luff
Music by
  • Carl Coleman
  • Caspar Hesselager
Production
companies
Distributed byNordisk Film Distribution
Release dates
  • 21 January 2018 (2018-01-21) (Sundance)
  • 14 June 2018 (2018-06-14) (Denmark)
Running time
85 minutes
CountryDenmark
Languages
  • Danish
  • English
Budget€500,000[1]
Box office$4.6 million[2]

The Guilty (

Best Foreign Language Film at the 91st Academy Awards,[5][6][7] making the December shortlist.[8]

Plot

Asger Holm, a Copenhagen police officer awaiting a hearing for shooting and killing a 19-year-old man, is assigned to answer emergency calls at the Emergency East desk. On the evening before the hearing, he receives a call from a woman named Iben Østergård who does not say she has an emergency and acts as if she is talking to a child. Initially about to hang up, Asger guesses the distressed Iben is not alone and asks her yes and no questions; she discreetly reveals she has been abducted but explicitly mentions a white van. Tracing the call by the nearest cellphone tower, Asger calls the North Zealand station to tell them to look for a white van driving north. The North Zealand dispatcher tells him this is not enough information, and a licence plate number and specific location are required. Asger talks to an officer in the North Zealand patrol car which pulls over a light-coloured van but lets it go when no woman is found inside.

Becoming absorbed in the case, Asger looks up information about Iben Østergård and finds a home telephone number, calling it. Iben's six-year-old daughter Mathilde answers. Mathilde says her father Michael Berg was at the house, despite being separated from Iben, and drives a white van. Michael had gone into the room of Mathilde's baby brother Oliver and shouted, apparently at Oliver, and then her mother had also gone in and shouted, Mathilde says. Michael then grabbed Iben and left with her. Mathilde also gives Asger her father's phone number, which she has memorised because he is not allowed to see her. Mathilde says she is scared to be alone, so Asger tells her to go and sit with her baby brother before calling North Zealand to have police sent to the house to check on Mathilde and Oliver; he learns Michael has a criminal record.

Night shift arrives and though technically off the job, Asger moves into a separate room to continue following Iben's case. Intermittently, Asger speaks again to Iben, who says she does not want to be locked up. He also speaks to the police at the Østergård house who find Mathilde is covered in blood. The officers check Oliver's room and find the baby has been cut open and is deceased. Asger is devastated and asks his colleague Rashid to break into Michael's house for clues as to his destination. It is revealed that Asger and Rashid have conspired to give false testimony at the hearing into Asger, which worries Rashid. After deliberating, Asger phones Michael's number and argues with him, ending with Asger shouting Michael should be executed.

The van is heading to

Elsinore
and Asger speaks again to Iben. Worried that Michael might kill Iben, Asger instructs Iben to hit Michael with a brick. Iben says Oliver is fine now and no longer crying. Asger asks her what she means and Iben says Oliver had snakes in his stomach and was crying so she cut them out to help him. The call is disconnected leaving Asger in shock. Asger receives a call from Rashid at Michael's house who finds records showing Michael lost visitation rights due to his criminal record while Iben spent time in a psychiatric hospital in Elsinore. Asger realizes Michael was taking Iben to the hospital because she unknowingly killed their son. He tells Rashid not to lie at the hearing and calls Michael again who says Iben hit him and escaped. Asger receives another call from Iben, who is about to jump off a bridge, after realizing she killed her son. He confesses to her that he shot a man, and it was not in self-defense but he says that unlike him, he knows Iben did not mean to harm anyone. With the noise of police officers approaching, Asger urges her to surrender to them. He speaks again to North Zealand who confirm they have Iben and congratulate him on his work. He gets up from his desk and slowly walks away while his colleagues, who heard his confession to Iben, watch in disbelief. Before exiting the building, Asger makes a phone call.

Cast

Production

The genesis of the film was a YouTube clip of a kidnapped woman calling an emergency dispatcher while her kidnapper sat nearby. Möller was struck by how much an audio clip could convey on its own with no visual accompaniment. "It felt like I was seeing images just listening to sound," he said. "It felt like I had seen this woman; I had an idea of the car she was sitting in and the road they were driving on." Another influence was the podcast Serial, about the 1999 murder of a Maryland student. "With every episode I got new information about the people involved and the places and occurrences. With every episode my image of these people changed."[1] Möller and co-writer Emil Nygaard Albertsen followed up by doing research at Danish dispatch centers, the characters emerged from there, including the idea of the main character being a police officer under investigation, who had been reassigned from the field to desk duty.[9]

The research also inspired the intentionally drab set. "When I got out to the first dispatch center, I had expected something much more high tech," Möller said. "And then I saw this room that looked like a shitty office and I loved that. I loved that contrast of these cops dealing with life and death and they're sitting in this boring, kind of dirty room. So that's what I wanted in the production design."[9]

Confining the film to a police dispatch center helped limit the budget to a frugal €500,000 (US$570,671) while forcing the filmmakers to work more creatively.[1] Möller and his director of photography, Jasper Spanning, divided the script into eight segments, changing the camera lenses and cinematic approach for each. The screen time for each segment ultimately ranged from 5 to 35 minutes. Filming employed a three-camera setup and took 13 days. Post-production sound editing took another eight weeks.[9]

Distribution rights to The Guilty in the United States were acquired by Magnolia Pictures at the Sundance Film Festival when the film first premiered there.[10]

Reception

Critical response

On the

review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 98% based on 120 reviews, with an average rating of 7.9/10. The website's critics consensus reads, "Sleek, well-acted, and intelligently crafted, The Guilty is a high-concept thriller that wrings maximum impact out of a handful of basic—and effective—ingredients."[11] Metacritic assigned the film a normalized score of 83 out of 100, based on 23 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".[12]

Accolades

Award Date of ceremony Category Recipient(s) Result Ref(s)
Austin Film Critics Association 7 January 2019 Best Foreign Language Film Nominated [13]
Bodil Awards 2 March 2019 Best Danish Film Gustav Möller Nominated [14][15]
Best Actor
 Jakob Cedergren Won
Blockbuster Talent Gustav Möller Won
National Board of Review 27 November 2018 Top 5 Foreign Language Films Won [16]
Satellite Awards 17 February 2019 Best Foreign Language Film Nominated [17]
St. Louis Film Critics Association 16 December 2018 Best Foreign Language Film Nominated [18]
Robert Awards February 2019
 Best Danish Film Gustav Möller Won
Best Actor Jakob Cedergren Won [19]
Best Director Gustav Möller Won

Remake

Main article: The Guilty (2021 film)

After The Guilty's debut, Möller received requests for remake rights from around the world, but declined personal involvement in any of them, preferring instead to work on new projects.[1] In 2018, it was announced that Nine Stories and Jake Gyllenhaal had bought the American rights to The Guilty with Gyllenhaal set to star.[20] In 2020, it was announced the film would be directed by Antoine Fuqua and be adapted by Nic Pizzolatto. The film was shot at a single Los Angeles location sometime in November.[21] Peter Sarsgaard, Ethan Hawke, and Riley Keough were confirmed to join the cast.[22] In September 2020, Netflix acquired worldwide distribution rights to the film for $30 million.[23]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c d Meza, Ed (13 August 2018). "'The Guilty's' Gustav Möller Talks Remakes, Suspense and 'Dog Day Afternoon'". Variety. Archived from the original on 2 May 2021. Retrieved 26 August 2020.
  2. ^ "The Guilty (2018)". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 15 April 2024.
  3. ^ Naderzad, Ali (21 September 2018). ""The Guilty," from Denmark, goes to the Oscars". Screen Comment. Retrieved 21 September 2018.
  4. ^ "Sundance Film Festival Unveils Full 2018 Features Lineup". Variety. 29 November 2017. Retrieved 1 January 2018.
  5. ^ "Danmarks bedste bud på en Oscar: En nervepirrende thriller med titlen: 'Den skyldige'". Politiken (in Danish). 20 September 2018. Retrieved 20 September 2018.
  6. ^ Holdsworth, Nick (20 September 2018). "Oscars: Denmark Selects 'The Guilty' for Foreign-Language Category". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 20 September 2018.
  7. ^ Abbatescianni, Davide (21 September 2018). "The Guilty enters the Oscars race for Denmark, Woman at War for Iceland". Cineuropa. Retrieved 21 September 2018.
  8. ^ "Academy Unveils 2019 Oscar Shortlists". The Hollywood Reporter. 17 December 2018. Retrieved 18 December 2018.
  9. ^ a b c Buder, Emily (29 March 2018). "'The Guilty': The Pulse-Pounding Crime Thriller Set on One Side of a Phone Call". No Film School.
  10. ^ Lang, Brent (23 January 2018). "Sundance: Magnolia Buys 'The Guilty'". Variety. Retrieved 23 January 2018.
  11. ^ "The Guilty". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved 10 October 2021.
  12. ^ "The Guilty". Metacritic. Retrieved 27 December 2018.
  13. Austin Chronicle. Archived
    from the original on 31 December 2018. Retrieved 31 December 2018.
  14. ^ "Bodilprisen 2019 – og de nominerede er…" (in Danish). Bodilprisen. 11 January 2019. Retrieved 25 February 2019.
  15. ^ Wind-Friis, Lea (2 March 2019). "Voldtægtsfilm af debutant blev den store vinder til Bodil-festen". Politiken (in Danish). Retrieved 2 March 2019.
  16. ^ Sharf, Zack (27 November 2018). "National Board of Review 2018 Winners: 'Green Book' Named Best Film, Lady Gaga Best Actress". IndieWire. Archived from the original on 27 November 2018. Retrieved 27 November 2018.
  17. ^ "2018 Nominations Ballot" (PDF). International Press Academy. 28 November 2018. Archived (PDF) from the original on 30 November 2018. Retrieved 2 December 2018.
  18. ^ "Annual StLFCA Awards". St. Louis Film Critics Association. 9 December 2018. Archived from the original on 10 December 2018. Retrieved 11 December 2018.
  19. ^ "Oscar-shortlisted The Guilty wins big at Danish Robert Awards". Danish Film Institute.
  20. ^ Kroll, Justin (10 December 2018). "Jake Gyllenhaal to Star in Remake of Denmark's Oscar Entry 'The Guilty' (EXCLUSIVE)". Variety. Retrieved 12 January 2019.
  21. ^ Fleming, Mike Jr. (15 September 2020). "'Southpaw' Duo Jake Gyllenhaal & Antoine Fuqua To Re-Team On Tense Thriller 'The Guilty'". Deadline Hollywood.
  22. ^ N'Duka, Amanda (13 November 2020). "'The Guilty': Ethan Hawke, Peter Sarsgaard, Riley Keough & More Join Jake Gyllenhaal in Antoine Fuqua-Directed Netflix Drama". Deadline Hollywood.
  23. ^ Fleming, Mike Jr. (23 September 2020). "Netflix Lands Jake Gyllenhaal-Antoine Fuqua Package 'The Guilty' In $30 Million WW Deal". Deadline Hollywood.

External links

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