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| Plot Synopsis A dejected beauty salon owner enters into a tenuous friendship with her shy, pre-operative transsexual neighbor in director Pernille Fischer Christensen's simmering tale of affection and compassion. Thirty-two year old Charlotte (Trine Dyrholm) may own a successful beauty salon, but her failing relationship with increasingly unstable live-in boyfriend Kristian (Frank Thiel) has found her opting to strike out on her own for a change. As Charlotte embarks on a series of strictly sexual one-night stands upstairs, downstairs neighbor Veronica (David Dencik) - born Ulrick - earns her keep as a dominatrix while taking female hormones, awaiting approval for gender reassignment surgery, and occasionally accepting provisions from his doting mother (Elsebeth Steentoft). When Charlotte requests the help of her downstairs neighbor in moving some furniture and carelessly identifies Veronica as a male, the depressive pre-op laments her chances for surgery and attempts to overdose on pills. Her suicide-attempt unexpectedly announced to her neighbors thanks to her whimpering dog Miss Daisy, Veronica is subsequently saved when Charlotte hears the animal's desperate cries and rushes her ailing neighbor to the hospital. Her selfless favor returned when Veronica defends her against a drunken Kristian shortly thereafter, lonely Charlotte eventually finds herself developing strong feelings for her neighbor despite her longstanding preference for the opposite sex. - Jason Buchanan, All Movie guide Reviews RUTHE STEIN San Francisco Chronicle Friday, December 22, 2006 'Soap' Melodrama. Starring Trine Dyrholm and David Dencik. Directed by Pernille Fischer Christensen. (In Danish with English subtitles. Not rated. 104 minutes. At the Lumiere "Fear of Flying" never got made into a movie. But imagine a 21st century version transported to Denmark with a transsexual thrown in for added titillation, and you've got the gist of the amusing melodrama "Soap." Charlotte (Trine Dyrholm) is a discontented wife. Like Erica Jong's heroine, she's snagged a doctor but can't rid herself of a nagging feeling that there's more to life than monogamous sex and a comfy middle-class existence. Deciding that her desires are too great for one man to fulfill, she moves into a declasse apartment and begins inviting strangers to share her bed. Downstairs in the same building, the self-named Veronica (David Dencik), who believes his gender a cruel joke of nature, mopes around in an ill-fitting pageboy wig and paints his nails red while waiting for the Danish medical bureaucracy to approve a sex-change operation. Of course, the neighbors are destined to become bosom buddies even before Veronica grows breasts. But it's the way their friendship develops that gives "Soap" its spark. The process is a tentative one, in which Veronica and Charlotte reveal a touching vulnerability. When the latter, a beautician by trade, brings an offering of a heavy foundation guaranteed to cover 5 o'clock shadows, Veronica stubbornly resists applying it. Practically all the action, if you can even call it that, is confined to one or the other's meager dwelling. (A budget of $1.5 million doesn't buy you panoramic shots.) Yet "Soap," which deservedly won two awards, including for best debut feature, at the Berlin Film Festival, never seems claustrophobic, thanks to the inventiveness of Danish director Pernille Fischer Christensen. She takes her cue -- as well as the title -- from the soap operas Veronica occupies the day watching. Soon Charlotte becomes a fan as well, and their sexual adventures deliberately mimic the histrionics on TV, only raunchier. Acting out male clients' sexual fantasies to pay the rent, Veronica can't seem to get them quite right. What "Soap" lacks in production values, it makes up for in fresh performances. Dyrholm plays Charlotte as down to earth and likable, so her leaving a husband seems more an act of courage than betrayal. Dencik doesn't try to hide his maleness -- he's no Jaye Davison from "The Crying Game." When Dencik's Veronica stops to put on lipstick before opening the door, it's with the full awareness that nobody will be fooled. In their gradual acceptance of each other, this oddest of couples somehow come to exemplify the Christmas spirit. -- Advisory: Sexual references and scenes of sexuality. KEN FOX TV Guide's Movie Guide A tough-to-like, newly single woman and a depressed pre-op transsexual find each other - if not necessarily friendship - in Danish director Pernille Fisher Christensen's smart and assured spin on traditional soap-opera tropes. Four years into her relationship with Kristian (Frank Thiel), the young doctor with whom she was about to buy a house, beauty-salon owner Charlotte (the marvelous Trine Dyrholm) decides she's bored with her life and packs her bags while he's away at a medical conference. Charlotte moves into the first flat she finds, which turns out to be in a rundown section of town. When she needs help moving the large bed the previous tenants left behind, she knocks on the door of her downstairs neighbor, suicidal transvestite Veronica (David Dencik), who supports herself by turning tricks out of her apartment. Estranged from her father and visited only by her mother (Elsebeth Steentoft), who nonetheless can't accept that the boy she raised as "Ulrik" would rather live as a woman, Veronica is anxiously awaiting an official letter approving sexual-reassignment surgery, and wiles away the solitary hours with only her dog, Miss Daisy, and her favorite soap opera for company. Veronica agrees to help Charlotte move the bed, but finds her new neighbor bossy, insulting and insensitive to her fragile feelings. She wants nothing more to do with Charlotte, but winds up owing her a huge debt of gratitude after Charlotte saves her life: Awakened late one night by Miss Daisy's frantic barking, Charlotte finds Veronica half-dead from a deliberate drug overdose and summons an ambulance. While Veronica recuperates in the hospital, Charlotte looks after Miss Daisy and collects the mail - accidentally shuffling that all-important letter into a pile of magazines and worthless circulars. Veronica returns willing to give friendship with Charlotte another shot, but just when it looks as if they're finally about to become friends, Charlotte's difficult personality gets in the way; that is, until an angry Kristian pays Charlotte a late-night visit and Veronica is able to pay her debt in a way that really counts. Christensen simultaneously avoids all the cliches that might have been heaped upon her beautifully rendered characters and roots their travails in everything that makes for a good soap: tragedy, tears, sexual tension, misplaced letters and a slightly sardonic voice-over that teases the plot lines like the old-fashioned, "tune in tomorrow" narrator of yesteryear. |
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| SOAP 2005 - Sweden / Denmark - 103 min. - Feature, Color AKA: En Soap (Original Foreign title) Director: Pernille Fischer Christensen |
| Genre / Type: Drama Keywords: boyfriend, depression, neighbor, overdose, transsexual, beauty salon, suicide attempt, one-nigth-stand Themes: Unlikely friendships, questioning seuxality Produced by: Nimbus Film / Zentropa Release: Oct 27, 2006 (USA - Limited) Released by: Strand Releasing DVD Street Date: Feb 6, 2007 Languages: Danish Subtitles: English Screen Format: Color, Letterbox for TV Sound: Dolby Digital Stereo Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1 (DVD) Studio: Strand Home Video Cast Trine Dyrholm: Charlotte David Dencik: Veronica Frank Thiel: Kristian Elsebeth Steentoft: Veronica's Mother Christian Tafdrup: Customer Pauli Ryberg: Customer Jacob Lohmann: One-Night Stand Claes Bang: One-Night Stand Christian Mosbaek: Narrator |
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