GurlyIamBeach Instant Favorite.

Beystiman It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

BelSports This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

Bob This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

lornespry-72116 I think this is a very good film, but I can understand how it struck negative chords with kevjfarrell (see the above review). There is a pedestrian quality about the plot. In some places we can almost imagine the filming of a scene. Transitions are seamless, but they have a seemingly manufactured quality about them. Perhaps it is all a matter of a frame of mind. Perhaps I am tired of guns, noise, furious action and the hyperventilating in today's popular entertainment. So I just let myself go and became immersed in the drama. I disagree with Mr Farrell in regards to the acting. Far from seeing it as sophomoric posturing for entry into film school, I found it natural, gripping and well-paced. In a word, realistic.I have noted that photography has not been mentioned in the above reviews. The camera is very much a part of this film. The cinematography contains a full pallet of colour and texture with intriguing, grainless resolution and depth of field. Scenes shift between chromatic hues to almost monochrome where light and shadow replace contrasting colour. You are neither jarred nor bullied by these changes. There is a gentleness, which is complimentary to the subject.The argument in the film is staged by gentleness vs violence, understanding and compassion vs reactive predilection. It is difficult to rate this film on a purely technical level. It could be rated less than my 8, and it could be rated more highly. I'll settle on 8 and just say that I am very glad I watched this film, and I hope to watch it again. I recommend the Danish version with subtitles.

Claudio Carvalho The police detective Andreas (Nikolaj Coaster-Waldau) is a family man married with the unstable Anna Thomsen (Maria Bonnevie) and they have a seven-week son called Alexander. Andreas' partner and best friend is detective Simon (Ulrich Thomsen), whose wife has left him with their son to live with a teacher of swimming classes. Simon misses his family and particularly his son. When they are called to investigate an argument of a couple in a residential building, they meet the well known drug dealer Tristan (Nikolaj Lie Kaas) and his wife Sanne (May Andersen) in the apartment. Andreas notes that Sanne is hiding something in a wardrobe, and when he opens it, he finds their seven-week son Sofus dirty and hungry. Andreas calls the Social Service and after the exams, they realize that the baby is healthy; therefore they can not retain the child. During the night, Andreas wakes-up with Anna crying and he finds that Alexander is dead. He wants to call an ambulance, but Anna tells that she would commit suicide and Andreas decides to swap his son per Sofus. He breaks in Tristan's apartment and swaps the babies while his parents are sleeping completely stoned. When Tristan finds the dead baby, Sanne tells that he is not her son. But Tristan buries the baby in the woods and simulates that he was abducted in a playground. Tristan and Sanne are arrested and Andreas and Simon are responsible for interrogate them. Meanwhile, Anna jumps from a bridge into a river and commits suicide. When Andreas finds the corpse of Alexander, there is an autopsy and the doctor shows the result to Andreas that is deeply affected. What could be the findings? "En chance til", a.k.a. "Second Chance", is a powerful and heartbreaking drama with a moral issue in another great film directed by Susanne Bier. The performances are top-notch and the film raises at least one point to think about. The main question is how far a father would go to protect his wife from a tragedy. The road to hell is paved of good intentions, and Andreas's intention is certainly the best for a desperate family man. But in the end, when he discovers what Anna has done to their son, reason returns to him. My vote is eight.Title (Brazil): "Segunda Chance" ("Second Chance")

maurice yacowar Suzanne Bier's A Second Chance is an emotionally complex expansion of the buddy cop genre. Buried in the rich psychological texture of the four main characters remains the classic whodunit. Who killed baby Alexander?Hero Andreas is a unique film cop because he's so open to his emotions, both as he caresses his lovely wife Anna and as he's dedicated instantly to the infants, the psychotic druggie's beshat waif as well as the cop's own helpless son. This cop dotes on babies. Andreas is a man strong enough to show his feelings, which of course prompts the irate Tristan to call him "faggot."It's hard to recall another film hero, especially in the crime genre, who shows such tenderness to babies and women. This softness leads Andreas over the line into his own irrational action: swapping his dead son for the druggies' neglected one, to give that kid a second chance.Andreas's motive is not entirely generous. Through that swap, his hysterical wife Anna would also get a second chance to be a parent, as he will as a father. Instead she gets a second chance to lose control. The new baby doesn't keep her from the suicide she threatened if Andreas were to call the ambulance to take away their Alexander, however dead. At risk of sounding clinical, both Anna and Tristan's Sanne have forms of postpartum depression. Sanne's life is further complicated by Tristan's violence that forces her to neglect their son Sofus. Paradoxically, the downtrodden Sanne proves a better mother than the rich and classy Anna. In a brief scene Anna's mother reveals an intense sunken rage at her husband's rejection of their daughter, presumably for marrying down to a cop. One central theme is the power of male authority and its maddening effect on women. With his remarkable sensitivity, though, Andreas experiences a grief and disorientation as profound as his wife's. Hence his plan to swap babies, fine for Sofus's second chance but an unwarranted cruelty to Sanne.Simon, Andreas's partner in crime-fighting, is typically his opposite. The bad cop and the good cup switch roles. When Andreas is initially stable and ethical, Simon is a basket case, drunken and belligerent, living a bum's life since his wife left him, taking their son. As Andreas goes to pieces Simon recovers his character, self-respect and discipline. He even tidies his flat. He deduces Andreas's secret and leads him to return Sofus to Sanne, confess his crime, take his punishment and start a new life, however smaller. The drunken Simon and maddened Andreas prove as hysterical as the women. The happy ending completes the theme of justice and proper compassion. We share the busted Andreas's satisfaction when he glimpses a clearly rehabilitated, stable Sanne and meets the bright young Sofus. The once helpless infant has a hammer now and his mom is buying screws. Andreas had to abandon his plan and his career to give Sofus and Sanne a true second chance.This buddy cop film is less about law and order than the pain of emotional commitment and vulnerability.

Sindre Kaspersen Danish screenwriter, producer and director Susanne Bier's fourteenth feature film which she co-wrote with Danish screenwriter and director Anders Thomas Jensen after their story, premiered in the Special Presentations section at the 39th Toronto International Film Festival in 2014, was screened in the Official Selection section at the 62nd San Sebastián International Film Festival in 2014, was shot on locations in Denmark and is a Denmark-Sweden co-production which was produced by producer Sisse Graum Jørgensen. It tells the story about a police officer named Andreas Juhl.Distinctly and subtly directed by Danish filmmaker Susanne Bier, this quietly paced fictional tale which is narrated interchangeably from the main characters' viewpoints, draws an immediately gripping portrayal of a police case and the parallel lives of those involved. While notable for its atmospheric milieu depictions and reverent cinematography by cinematographer Michael Keith Snyman, this character-driven and narrative-driven story about Scandinavian values and conventional views on fatherhood and motherhood, depicts multiple perspicacious studies of character and contains a great and timely score by composer Johan Söderqvist.This dramatically realistic and increasingly heartrending character piece which is set in Denmark in the 21st century and where trauma instigates heartfelt actions which surpasses moral boundaries and a father and husband is brutally confronted with circumstantial events which provokes intuitive reactions, is impelled and reinforced by its cogent narrative structure, substantial character development, rhythmic continuity, self-explanatory scenes of a human being named Sofus and the invaluable acting performances by Danish actors Nikolaj Coaster-Waldau, Nikolaj Lie Kaas and Norwegian actress Maria Bonnevie. A radically humane narrative feature.