A Second Chance

Overview

Many a movie attempts to cause its audience to wonder what they'd do in certain circumstances. In the likes of Open Hearts, Brothers and In A Better World, Danish director Susanne Bier has contemplated the aftermath of accidents, war and childhood spats, all with repercussions rippling through ordinary lives. As they witness her tales of heartbreak and hard choices, viewers have been asked to do the same.

In A Second Chance, Bier explores the dilemma that arises when a father faces tragedy and a detective spies a chance to stop another — and when both men are one and the same. Andreas (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) dotes on his wife, Anne (Maria Bonnevie), and their infant son, Alexander, while trying to stop drug-addicted ex-con Tristan (Nikolaj Lie Kaas) and his girlfriend Sanne (May Andersen) from neglecting their baby. An unfortunate turn in one situation sparks an extreme decision in the other.

The events the feature chronicles are best discovered while watching, though to say that Andreas's disheveled, often-drunk partner Simon (Ulrich Thomsen) starts to seem like the more sensible of the two gives an indication of the darkness that's in store. A large leap of faith is required to stick with the scenario that eventuates, one that attempts to justify a selfish deed through several layers of personal and professional desperation.

In fact, while playing with heightened moral circumstances steeped in melodrama is what Bier and her regular collaborating screenwriter Anders Thomas Jensen do time and time again, here they threaten to stretch their usual questions too far. Whether anyone viewing the film would follow the same path as the protagonist is definitely debatable.

Thankfully, that conflicted character is the feature's highlight, even if he is stranded within a dubious plot. Or, perhaps more accurately, Coster-Waldau stands out in his return to his native filmmaking and in playing against his Game of Thrones type. The man known to many as Jaime Lannister once again experiences significant family troubles, of course. Here, however, A Second Chance gives him much more room to display both range and subtlety than his small-screen role usually affords.

Coster-Waldau's prominence isn't at his co-stars' expense, with Lie Kaas in particular also strong; nor is it at his director's. If his performance helps make the incredulous seem empathetic, then Bier's helming tries to strip back an unwieldy story and shape it into thriller territory. Sometimes she is successful, with the feature certainly looking the cool, steely part, and also making a strong statement about class assumptions. Sometimes, the material gets the better of her, such as when it tries to toy with its title. A Second Chance poses many such opportunities, but audiences unable to buy into the central source of drama may not go along with them.