Film Reviews

In Your Hands

• Rating:
• Director: Annette K. Olesen.
• Starring: Ann Eleonara Jorgensen, Petrine Agger, Jens Albinus, Trine Dyrholm.
• Details: Denmark / 101 mins (12s).

Anna (Jorgensen), a female priest who can't have children, works in a women's prison with limited success among its hard-bitten fraternity. So she's resentful, at first, of the way in which the prisoners turn to new arrival, the quiet and distant Kate (Dyrholm), of whom one prisoner claims "There's something about her and God." Anna's distrust soon changes, however, when she becomes pregnant, although her happiness is then leavened with the news that her baby might have to be aborted. The 34th film to be made in the Dogme 95 mould, wherein the filmmaking strives to be as naturalistic as possible, In Your Hands is a challenging examination of how God is to be found in the most unexpected places, but particularly in the inter-relationships between people. Bolstered by strong performances and a script that manages the rare feat of being sympathetic to all the film's characters, it is nonetheless something of a pot-boiler that cranks up the melodramatics, in the process making a nonsense of Dogme's 'naturalistic' approach. Mind you, to be faithful to the spirit in which In Your Hands was made, I should probably confess that I'm not the world's biggest fan of Dogme. So, you pays your money. . .

Review by Declan Burke