‘Beginnings’ Review: Trine Dyrholm is Superb in an Emotionally Acute Portrait of a Divorce Disrupted

variety.com:

Guy Lodge Film Critic Two familiar premises for a personal crisis drama — the unraveling of a marriage, and recovery from a medical calamity — combine to raw and even surprising effect in Jeanette Nordahl‘s accomplished sophomore feature “Beginnings.” Arriving five years after her debut “Wildland,” a somber criminal drama quickened by an electric Sidse Babett Knudsen performance, the Danish writer-director’s follow-up once more uses confidently reserved craft and straightforward storytelling to place the spotlight on a gutsy big-name star turn, or two: this time from Trine Dyrholm and David Dencik, both without vanity and emotionally on edge as a long-married couple unsure how or when to end their relationship for good.

It’s a fraught state of limbo even before sudden disaster strikes, as Dyrholm’s high-flying working mom suffers a debilitating stroke, and an already protracted divorce process is further placed on hold. “Beginnings” observes with great care and intensity the conflicted affections and lingering obligations between a couple both impatient and unready to live apart — but extends its compassionate gaze and knotty interior understanding to other affected parties, including their increasingly fragile eldest daughter and an extra-marital lover waiting for the next chapter of her own life to begin.

Nordahl and co-writer Rasmus Birch mostly keep the stakes high and the drama involving without sinking into histrionics; the resulting film, recently premiered in Berlin’s Panorama strand, is relatable and broadly distributable arthouse fare.