Is it possible to start over again after killing a 4-year-old child?
Two friends kidnapped and killed a small child, but it was all an accident, they say. One of them is released from prison. His name is Jan Thomas. He gets a job at a church as an organist. But by chance, the mother of the dead child sees Jan Thomas, and she completely loses control of herself and her actions.
Troubled Water aka deUSYNLIGE, is a powerful movie about a family and a murderer who tries to live a normal life. But it’s difficult when the mother of the dead child discovers that Jan Thomas has been released from prison. It brings everything she has tried to forget back to life when she sees Jan Thomas with a young child who’s the child of Jan Thomas’ girlfriend. She loses control of herself, and the situation makes life difficult for all parties.
Erik Poppe has again made an emotional movie that’s sore and interesting. The theme is hard to imagine. I didn’t feel so much sympathy for Jan Thomas in the beginning. Everyone is young and dumb, but I just don’t understand what he was thinking when he kidnapped the child. He doesn’t seem like a mentally challenged person, so why kidnap a 4-year-old child? If you are going to steal something, don’t take a child lying in a pram with you! And the kid looks too big to be sleeping in a pram. What a lazy kid!
Jan Thomas didn’t mean it, but he makes a strange choice when the accident occurs. It must be panic, that’s my opinion. He doesn’t seem to be an evil person.
We get to know Jan Thomas when he’s released from prison. He’s an introvert, and it doesn’t seem he takes responsibility for what he did at all. He is deviant and annoying. I felt some sympathy for him because, as a viewer, you can’t tell what he’s feeling when he doesn’t express himself. It may seem as if music is a therapy for Jan Thomas. With music, he can let out his inner demons.
Agnes, who’s the mother of the dead child, is easier to understand, as she still mourns over her dead son. She needs professional help because what she does is her maternal instinct that takes over when she sees Jan Thomas with a young child. It’s not rational thinking as she exposes everyone around her to great emotional stress that can be very destructive. But she wants an answer from Jan Thomas about what really happened that day because even though he and his friend were convicted, she doesn’t believe what they said during the trial. Is Jan Thomas hiding something?
If there’s one thing I didn’t buy completely, it’s the priest who falls in love with Jan Thomas. She’s nice to look at, but she seems horny and a little cheap. She falls madly in love with the child killer, but she doesn’t know that he’s a child killer. She has a child, and Jan Thomas doesn’t like to have contact with children, which is understandable. She’s a horny priest, but she’s pretty! I’ll give her that.
An interesting scene is when Jan Thomas plays with the child, and he gets a little rough with the child. It’s a little difficult to interpret what he wants in this scene, and I always wonder if we see something of his dark side or if he’s making sure that the child hasn’t been harmed. This takes us back to the day when his future was changed when the child he and his friend kidnapped died.
Troubled Water deserves all the excellent reviews it has received. And I have to praise Pål Sverre Hagen, who is Norway’s best actor. It’s sad that people don’t see how good he is. He never disappoints. He has one thing that’s important for any actor. He has a wide range. He’s too big for Norway, and I hope we can see him more in foreign movies. He deserves that after delivering the goods time after time. F Axel Hennie! He’s not mediocre. He’s pretty bad, and I don’t understand how this man has turned into Norway’s most famous and well-known actor. Pål Sverre Hagen is in another league than the try-hard, Aksel Hennie.
Jan Thomas is introverted and mysterious, and we never get to know him. But that’s something I fell for. He carries a heavy burden. He has killed and ruined his life and the life of another family. How can he live with himself? He’s so young, but what he did will always follow him and the family of the dead child.