The truth about men
The Truth About Men - An Anti-Romantic Comedy (Original Title: Sandheden om mænd ) by Nikolaj Arcel from 2010 is a Danish tragic comedy about an unfortunate screenwriter in search of true love and the meaning of life. The main characters Mads and Marie are portrayed by Thure Lindhardt and Tuva Novotny . The film was released internationally in English in 2012 and was also dubbed in German.
action
After ten years of partnership, 34-year-old Mads and his girlfriend Marie are moving into a house on the outskirts. But while Marie is apparently happy and wants Mads to have a child, Mads doesn't like this development. He begins to doubt his love for Marie. With one exception, he thinks he never got the girls he actually wanted, only the others, to whom he also counts his current relationship. After 15 years, he has to think more and more about the only girl he really wanted and with whom he only had a short evening including a single kiss. In addition, Jonas, a friend and work colleague, unexpectedly fell into a coma at the age of 37, which makes him fear that he might feel the same way. Finally he separates from Marie and moves into his own apartment. At the same time, he also quits his job, which he sees as monotonous and meaningless, as a screenwriter for a crime series that always follows the same, modular structure, and instead looks for ideas for a new, truthful film script, with which he can recall previous successes such as the cartoon about the trip to Zekaya .
At first Mads suffers from writer's block . He spontaneously decides to look for his childhood sweetheart. He finds her surprisingly quickly, but she has changed a lot, suffers from psychological problems and now appears completely unattractive to him. Following the advice of his best friends - Peter and Louise - he begins dating a number of women whom, for various reasons, he does not like. When he meets a journalist with whom he could imagine a more serious relationship, he skeptically recognizes parallels to his relationship with Marie. Then he meets the cheerful, 19-year-old Julie, who has certain visual similarities with his childhood sweetheart, and begins an intense, temporarily fulfilling relationship with the young woman. Now it is he who can imagine a permanent relationship, Julie, on the other hand, is also interested in other men and finally ends the relationship by announcing that she will move to Berlin. Mads reflects on the value of his relationship with Marie and asks her to return to her. However, Marie has since entered into a partnership with a colleague.
Frustrated, Mads goes to clubs and speaks to women with whom he has a number of one-night stands , including the journalist again. He finally falls into despair. Again he asks Marie to come back to him. As in his worse scripts, she surprises him with the answer "I'm pregnant" and he realizes that he has lost her forever. Deeply disappointed, Mads has an anxiety attack and collapses in Marie's bathroom. He moves into his old room with his parents and begins psychotherapy. He now compares his life with the structure that his scripts follow and sees parallels. This is how he finds the triggering event that caused the upheaval in Mad's life: Jonas' sudden stroke, who is now in a coma. While visiting the coma patient, he meets the nurse Trine. He realizes that it is an illusion to think that we can control our lives through our choices. Trine replies that the unexpected that happens is the best thing about life.
The film skips the next seven years. Mads is watching Journey to Zekaya 2 with his son . He now lives separately from Trine and takes turns with her to look after their son. Marie and Mads meet by chance and their children are present. When asked if he was happy, Mads said that he was moving in with his new girlfriend and his life was going up and down, but mostly happy. As in the scripts, the film ends with positive, optimistic closing music.
review
The Truth About Men received mostly positive reviews. The Tagesspiegel called the film "humorous", but at the same time criticized the last third of the script, which was poor in action. The world praised the film's refusal to do justice to “genre-typical coincidences and happy endings” as a striking strength.
Web links
- The truth about men in the Internet Movie Database (English)