Daglicht

It's about when love turns evil. An attorney inadvertently finds out she has an autistic brother. Her mother has kept him under wraps for decades. He's serving time for murder. When she visits him she decides he's innocent. After some investigation into the matter she decides to spring him. She talks her boss at the law firm into taking the pro bono case and she's off! It's got some cliches that get a little tired, like everybody telling her to not investigate the matter any further, to what end people? Some of them, yes, they are heavily invested but only about half the people who try to thwart her investigation are. Other than that it's a great story using the device that the inmate can't speak for himself.

Screenwriters in all countries can learn a lesson from this remarkable thriller. Plot, characters, suspense and an indefinable quality, humanity.

Watching this film not only kept me guessing, even though you have a vague idea of where it is going, in a way that keeps you on edge until the very end. Sure, some of the "thriller" aspects are not up to the budgets of the best of Hollywood, but they work to the extent needed here.

The actors are top notch (though I doubt there are may hunks like Bo as hospital orderlies) and Fedja van Huêt, as Ray, in particular, does an excellent turn in his role.

If you want a thriller with something more, see this movie.

When my brother suggested this movie to me, I actually didn't think I would enjoy it as much as I expected, since it was a movie my brother suggested and it was a Dutch movie. Those are two facts that cause me to doubt the quality of a film. But 'Daglicht' really amazed me.

From the beginning until the end of the movie I was completely sucked into it. The story was interesting at all times. Like every movie in this genre or every single episode of CSI, you think you have an idea what the clue will be. In this movie the direction is very clear, you know who was involved, but the finale was beyond my imagination and left me with my mouth wide open.

There were also some negative aspects of the movie, but I don't want to give any spoilers in this review because I want to give people the opportunity to judge the movie beforehand before they spend two hours of their lives watching it. For that reason, I will keep it vague by telling that there were some aspects and characters in the movie that really annoyed me and that there were still some questions unanswered at the end.

To close this review I want to mention the most positive thing of the movie; the cast. The children playing in the movie, the main character and (most of all) Ray were played magnificently. Usually I never judge the acting since it is always sufficient to me, but this is the first movie where I really noticed the difference between 'acting and acting'.

I give this movie an 8/10 because it is definitely better than the average Hollywood film I have seen in 2013!

What worked: It's a well executed thriller, keeping the viewers on the edge of their seat till the last minute of the movie. It's twisted, plot gets interesting and keeps us guessing what the next scenes of the movie it is going to be. It's an interesting and engaging watch. It might deserve a second watch to grasp the complexity of the series of events that's happening in the movie. What did not work: -Plotholes, unanswered questions : many questions in the movie are not answered, some just skipped and some not covered. What we expect ,once so many complexities are set up in the movie , is a satisfying conclusion and answered to if not all but most of the curiosities. The movie gets interesting but the final moments of the movie did not grasp the intensity and the impact that it should have established. Some final moments seemed rushed and some not covered. As a result, makes the movie an enjoyable watch but not a complete one. Final verdict: recommended

I must admit: Being north of 60, I've become jaded to the plethora of mediocre films that had been released over the past 20 or 30 years. They all seem to be cheap rehashes of prior films, created to make a quick buck from the continuously endless parade of streaming sites that be.

Daglicht (Daylight) took me by surprise because I wasn't expecting anything other than a run-of-the-mill Nordic noir. Perhaps I'm biased because I'm also autistic like a few of the characters in Daylight, but special mention should be made that the filmmakers did portray autism fairly accurately.

Also, I was surprised by the strong relation this film had to Rain Man. You can almost call this a Danish Rain Man given its similarities.

Like a lot of Scandinavian noir, the atmosphere was perfect as well as the pacing, music and direction. Was some of the acting a bit over the top? Maybe. Hollywood is also guilty of making sure you can tell someone is autistic from a mile away. Nevertheless, Daylight is worth the two hours spent watching it and I look forward to more films from the creators.