Mona's World

Second film from Jonas Elmer following his 1997 debut "Let´s Get Lost" features much of the same cast, and again has Sidse Babett-Knudsen in the lead, which is reason enough to watch this. She´s an uptight accountant who is taken hostage in a bank robbery. One of the robbers, the charming Thorbjørn (Thomas Bo Larsen) falls in love with her, but she has a problem with relationships, and fantasizes about a mystery man, which may or may not exist (Mads Mikkelsen). Her nasty boss is giving her a hard time at work, too. Funny and quirky comedy with Babett-Knudsen giving another wonderful performance, aided no end by veteran Bodil Udsen (always a pleasure), Larsen as the bank robber and Klaus Bondam as a neurotic male porn actor.

Some characters border on caricature, namely Jesper Asholt´s coke-sniffing boss and Bjarne Henriksen´s nasty bank robber, with a climactic soft drink commercial event party that reminds you of Carrie´s prom night, but a pleasant romantic comedy with plenty of laugh out loud moments.

Written by the director and Nikolaj Peyk, based on improvisational work with the actors, and with contributions from internet users.

*** (of ****)

One of those flicks that are better than they should be... if still not actually 'good'.

'Mona's World' is largely uninteresting for the duration its (thankfully short) 1hr 20min run time, though to be fully fair to this 2001 release it does have a few relatively redeeming qualities. Sidse Babett Knudsen is a decent lead, Mads Mikkelsen's extremely minimal screentime is amusingly utilised and some of the humour did surprisingly make me chuckle a little - despite some patchy subtitles.

I doubt that I'll remember it and my rating is perhaps slightly generous, but it's strangely OK.

/// s/o the cast!