Directed by Henrik Ruben Genz
(R)
****
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Terribly Happy “looks and feels like standard noir,” at least initially, said Noel Murray in The Onion. This ironically titled thriller, adapted from a novel by Erling Jepsen, in fact turns out to be a much more complex affair.
Danish director Henrik Ruben Genz weaves the tale of a marshal who, because of unspecified infractions, gets relocated from Copenhagen to a small, backwoods town. Thinking he’s been put there to restore order, he soon learns that this strange, insular community prefers to mete out justice on its own terms.
What unspools is a psychological study of the “universal nature of compromise and corruption,” said Alissa Simon in Variety. Genz’s film “cleverly defies expectations as it knowingly toys” with genres from mock Western to diabolical comedy.
Genz manipulates genre conventions with the same comfort and finesse as David Lynch or the Coen brothers, said Stephen Holden in The New York Times. What’s even more impressive is his “slightly facetious, I-know-more-than-you-do tone,” reminiscent of Alfred Hitchcock. Hollywood could use more of his kind of filmmaking.
