Critic Reviews

Not a horror movie but a witty, expertly constructed psychological thriller.

Terribly Happy isn't, but it is wonderfully unhinged, and a painstakingly constructed meditation on a place where good and evil meet, mate, and make sour times sublime and, dare I say it, beautiful.

This is a smart, melancholy crime picture, which takes its cues from the title of the perverse old standard Christensen plays on her stereo at night: “You Always Hurt The One You Love.”

Inventive, droll and sharp, the film is rich in comic darkness but quite humane and genuine as well.

The film gets seriously weird as it goes along, but without losing its sense of direction or taste for offbeat humor.

Entertaining and full of surprising twists, this highly cinematic tale of a Copenhagen policeman working punishment duty in the provinces plays with genre in a manner that can be compared with the Coen brothers or David Lynch.

Cedergren is a little too bland, but that works with Hansen's air of haplessness and sets him apart from the colorful locals. His self-inflicted reckoning is a horizon visible throughout the movie, and the bog outside of town is a thudding but effective metaphor of willful repression.

Terribly Happy must surely be the greatest Danish Western ever made.

The actors are charmingly low-key, and the lensing, by Jorgen Johansson, adds to the offbeat aura. Whatever you do, don't miss the booze-guzzling showdown.

It may not sound funny, but there's a bleakly comic air about the story, and a bit of surrealism, suggesting the most caustic side of the Coen brothers.