Teddy bear

The Teddy Bear here is a thirty eight year old bodybuilder, Dennis, who lives at home with his domineering mother, Ingrid, in a very disturbing relationship. From the start, it is apparent that his mom has a few screws loose. The opening scene shows Dennis at a restaurant with a woman on a date. He is completely out of sorts and shows the emotional level of a high school boy at the senior prom. Back at home, he tells mommy dearest that he has been to a movie with his friend, Lars. Later on at a dinner, he meets someone with a wife from Thailand, who inspires him to travel there to find a mate. He tells his mother that he is going to Germany instead. In Pataya, he is swarmed by prostitutes and ends up in a very awkward situation with one of them. He meets Toi, and they manage to make a connection. Eventually, mom finds out and the fireworks begin. Kim Kold as Dennis and Elsebeth Steentoft as Ingrid are outstanding in this disturbing and deeply moving look at human nature from Denmark; a definite candidate for best foreign language film at the Oscars.

I really enjoyed this movie about a gentle giant who travels to Thailand and falls in love. The main character reminds me of myself, I too like bodybuilding and I plan to visit Pattaya in Thailand and hopefully find love with a normal girl who isn't looking for business only. This film was heart touching, a very nice story. There were some interesting characters as well as nice scenery. I recommend this film to anyone who's a fan of foreign cinema like I am. I'm now searching for some similar films which are about love and travel, preferably foreign, I'm a fan of local films too but foreign are my favourite. I really enjoyed this one. I rate it 7 out of 10.

Teddy Bear (2012)

And you thought you were shy? This guy, who is all about power and presence, a massive bodybuilder, is a social misfit afraid of his own shadow. And I believe it. I almost felt sorry for the actor, forgetting the difference.

I suppose the story from the outside is overly simple--an aging bodybuilder is looking for love, but his overbearing (and tiny) mother doesn't want him to move out and move on. So he is kind and kinder and stays and yet he has some kind of need to have a girlfriend that won't just go away. With the secret help of an uncle, he makes a trip to Thailand. And here he meets girls, but he can hardly speak, and nothing comes of it. The second day there he finds a weightlifting gym and asks if he can work out. And all of a sudden he is at ease and himself.

And things go from there, not in any unexpected way. All of this is told with such touching restraint it makes you really involved. The leading man, Kim Kold, obviously a bodybuilder (like Schwarzenegger, you can't fake that stuff), is really good at playing an exceedingly quiet guy, but not a stupid one. He is going to be in a Hollywood movie ("Fast and Furious 6") this year, and who knows whether it'll be a first step or a last one. It seems like, just because of his Hulk shaped body, he has a future at least as a character actor.

The movie, all told, might lack some kind of storytelling nuance. It is what it is on purpose, but so much so it sometimes floats a little. This kind of Indie style often works just the way life does--things are interesting, watching some new people do some new things in an undistracted way is going to be watchable. And this does that, and well. It's because of its sincerity that you have some kind of emotional connection. But there is no magic, either, the way some films use small casts and simple touching plots and also find a way to lift the experience into something rare. (I'm thinking here of a similar movie about an aging wrestler in South America, "Bad Day to Go Fishing," which I highly recommend.)

I don't know the Danish film world much except that we, in the U.S., seem to get the cream of the crop and so the few I've seen have all been exceptional. I'd give this a look.

This was such a venture into the unfamiliar for me, this small window into the life of a gentle giant who happens to be a body builder, living with his mother in Denmark and looking for love. That was a mouth full. I was initially taken aback because I did not expect subtitles, but the film had a good balance of the spoken English versus Danish and Thai, and it shows that around the world the unifying language is English. In all I was glad I did not have to read the whole movie. Dennis (Kim Kold) is so large that when you first take in his entire physique, he is a bit menacing. At one point in the film when he does the muscle flex poses that are part of the body building culture he has this strained smile on his face that is rather creepy. It dawns on me that everyone is faced with some prejudice based on their appearance. A chance encounter with Dennis would make most anyone consider turning to run the other way, but this film shows that he is so affable, that even with all his girth, he is completely dominated by his mother. This film could have easily been entitled Danish Mommy Dearest. The quirkiest part about the relationship between Dennis and his mother Ingrid (Elsebeth Steentoft) is that she is so diminutive that when they interact he hulks over her. As the story progressed and Dennis ventures out to Pattaya Thailand and meets Toi (Lamaiporn Hougaard), we truly get to know who Dennis is. This segment of the film is the reason for the aforementioned English language being a unifier. At home Dennis spoke Danish, he meets Toi who speaks Thai and as they get to know each other they speak English. Who woulda thunk it. I was at no point in the story sure of what recourse Dennis would take. Would he succumb to the wishes of his mother or seek some personal happiness for himself. This film made it quite clear why Dennis was a body builder, and proved if it ain't one thing it's your mother. The story was an unexpected delight, and it shows that no matter what is on the outside or what your background happens to be, that inside everyone is basically the same, no one wants to be alone. I give this charming little story an amber light.

Love how my previous entry was also about a movie, specifically those little nasty ones in the romance genre. Teddy Bear. I don't know whats up with me but I cannot rate a movie 2 3 or 4 stars. Either I love it or hate it. I think part of it is because I have the nasty tendency of seeing myself in everything. If I see myself and the message resonates... the other nasty tendency to activate my nasolacrimal ducts. This one didn't jerk my tears, it just sort of gave me hope. Mired in Dennis's brutal awkwardness, I couldn't help but cheer him on when the only thing he really wanted from Toi was to save him from the gut wrenching loneliness that was still there as he was being accosted by Thailand's finest. IDK if it was his upbringing or my own idealistic tendencies, but Dennis's refusal to sex even if Toi was kinda really cute in that thing signifies to me even more that just sex, the casual variety of intimacy, was something that Dennis has experienced and understands the fleeting nature of. Description said unexpected lesson about life and love. I think Dennis was taught what love meant the moment he stepped into that gym. Loving something or someone is being able to be or do anywhere and enjoy it just as much as you would at home. Love is the universal language that needs not for words to fail to have its place. Love brings together no matter where, no matter how and no matter who. I think this taught me and the viewer what love isn't. Love is not the absence of loneliness but rather the embracing of loneliness through companionship. Dennis's mother feels as if he does not love her because he leaves on his own whim. Dennis only leaves because he is lonely. Lonely because the companionship of a mother waits only to be replaced by matrimony. Void of matrimonial substance, Ingrid clings to her son. Love is not conditional upon loyalty to this companionship however. Love can transcend time and space. Love rends the heart while its claws lay hundreds of miles away, only to be mended with the redolent whispers of lovers, nowadays voiced over internet protocol. Love is in the letters of bygone days between the stranded and the shipwrecked.