Editor’s Notes: Hevn opens on today (May 27th) in Toronto at TIFF Bell Lightbox.
Hevn, the first feature by Norwegian female filmmaker Kjersti G. Steinsbo, is a subtitled enticing female revenge story and psychological thriller. After losing her younger sister to suicide following a rape at a party twenty years earlier, Andrea (Siren Jørgensen) becomes obsessed with exposing and punishing the man responsible, Morten (Frode Winther), a well-respected hotelier in a small town in Norway who is also running for mayor. Andrea carefully weaves her way into the town’s social fabric, befriending Morten and his wife Nina (Maria Bock), and Morten’s best friend Bimbo (Anders Baasmo Christiansen) and unfolding out her plan play-by-play, until the film’s apex which, after so much build-up, unfortunately falls slightly flat.
. . . the first feature by Norwegian female filmmaker Kjersti G. Steinsbo, is a subtitled enticing female revenge story and psychological thriller.
With only a handful of central characters and locations, Hevn is tightly wound and suspenseful, unfolding in front of a stunning backdrop of mountains, mist and fjords, which serve to engulf the characters and box them in as the events play out: one by one, they are stripped naked in an unforgiving environment that forces them to face their individual truths. A foreboding soundtrack serves to complete the unsettling atmosphere, which remains so even during a dinner party scene on a sunny day with party music playing in the background; the audience is never given a moment’s respite to relax, as there is a constant game being played onscreen, be it verbal, nonverbal or purely psychological.
Jørgensen is highly effective as the manipulative Andrea, tall and birdlike, with large eyes that constantly communicate her true emotions as she forces herself to smile and laugh with the very people she is manipulating and the one person she is hell-bent on destroying. We also get to see Andrea at her most vulnerable, in one particularly soft moment when she finally allows herself to break down over her sister’s rape and suicide, and is comforted by someone from her past. Winther perfectly embodies the too-perfect chiseled, blonde, model-like Morten, “golden boy” of the town with a dark side, which slowly starts resurfacing; Bock is great as the innocent, faithful wife who knows deep down something is amiss but refuses to believe it; and Chrisitansen completes the core cast as a loveable, loyal best friend to Morten who finds himself facing a moral dilemma by the film’s end.
Jørgensen is highly effective as the manipulative Andrea, tall and birdlike, with large eyes that constantly communicate her true emotions as she forces herself to smile and laugh . . .
For a debut feature, Steinsbo has done a commendable job, with excellent casting choices and a good script. Hevn could only have been enhanced by a slightly quicker pace or a shorter running time, as it began to drag while little occurred to progress the story; surely, Morten and Nina would have questioned just how long this reporter was going to stay (we only experienced Andrea “interviewing” the couple once in the film’s entirety), and they likely would have researched her on the Internet prior to leaving her to guard their baby alone. Similarly, the showdown between Andrea and Morten that was twenty years in the making was a letdown, feeling too unreal, with predictable, forced dialogue when juxtaposed with the rest of the film.
Nevertheless, Hevn certainly succeeds in maintaining the audience’s interest, as we hope as the “golden boy’s” façade of perfection is slowly dismantled that there are no innocent casualties along the way, and as we root for Andrea to expose Morten for the monster he truly is so she and Morten’s victims can finally receive peace.
With only a handful of central characters and locations, Hevn is tightly wound and suspenseful, unfolding in front of a stunning backdrop of mountains, mist and fjords, which serve to engulf the characters and box them in as the events play out: one by one.
