I liked it. I guessed it all after only a few minutes in, but that's ok, in a film like this it's not surprise that I want, but feelings. Besides, the fact that I already expected everything that happened means that it was well played, because I saw it hinted in their performances.
It's like two stories in one. Young Patrick and Astrid are about to get married in Italy, but seeing them together I thought 'I see him better with Alessandro than with Astrid..' so it was clear what was going to happen, and when later Alessandro kissed him and he kissed him back I was not surprised, I simply thought 'good, he had to understand and face it before the wedding'. I was always sure they would have called it off. Unfortunately, I was not saved from the various speeches, I really dislike public speeches.
The main story follows Ida (Trine Dyrholm) who is coming out of a very difficult period; she had cancer, has lost all her hair and is still afraid she might not be cured after all. She finds out that her husband is having an affair with a very young woman, and leaves alone for Italy, where her daughter Astrid is to get married (or not). She meets Philip, Patrick's father, by bumping into his car first, and then making the trip together. At first they don't like each other because she's a disaster and he's a jerk, but in Italy they have the chance to spend time together and talk, and Philip is more and omre charmed by her. No surprise there, of course they end up together, that was no mystery, but in this kind of films it's all about how it happens. He fakes indifference but he was angry at the world from the day his beloved wife Elizabeth died in an accident, and now he's stalked by her sister Benedikte, a horrible woman and a disgusting mother who thinks only of herself and is sure that Philip must be hers. Of course her daughter drinks too much, with such a mother!! Poor girl, I was glad when Philip told Benedikte clearly what he thought of her.
Ida's husband came to Italy with his girlfriend and was cause of his daughter and son's anger. I liked the son Kenneth a lot.
Back home, after the wedding was called off and everybody had left, Ida found her husband was back, begging her for forgiveness, and she took him back. I guess everyone watching it thought like I did: "kick him out!" but it was a right and human step. She was confused, after all that had happened in such a short period of time, but now with him back and Philip that comes to tell her he has thought only of her all the time and wants her to go to Italy with him, although she tells him to go away all this makes her realize that she can't go back to the life she had with her husband, that that's over now, so she leaves him and goes to Italy.
She has made other tests at the hospital, but at home she has not found the courage to look at the results, so she wants to do it, with Philip next to her. Before checking the results Philip tells her beautiful words of how he wants her, how he'll be happy for whatever time he can have with her, ten minutes or thirty years he wants her anyway.
When they watch it they say nothing, but it looks to me like for now at least the results are encouraging, and they'll stay together and face together whatever will come.
They call these films "comedies" but there were more tears than smiles, still I suppose there's no better word for it.
I like how he saw all the beauty in her, how she couldn't, how she found that she can let herself have happiness again. A different kind, yes, because she'll probably always have that same fear, but with the right person at your side it can be less difficult to bear and she can enjoy the time she has with a man that appreciates her.
I would have gladly done without Benedikte's horrible speech, and also Astrid's speech when she said she didn't want to become old and see that she's a sad fat person, unhappy with her life, but luckily she's still in time to change it. It was nasty.
There's really no need for all these public speeches, boring or embarassing.
Ida was really beautiful in her red dress, and even more at the end with the short hair and that different look in her eyes, of a quiet new hope for something better to come, for a new life that she never imagined she could have.
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