Silent Heart

A beautiful house by the sea, one autumn weekend. Esther has invited her whole family: her husband, her two grown-up daughters, their partners, her grandson and her oldest friend. Esther is ill, with a disease that will soon take away her body piece by piece, and she has decided to die on her own terms before it does. Everyone has agreed to her choice. This weekend is meant to be a goodbye, full of good food, old stories and an early Christmas. But as the hours pass, the agreement starts to crack. The older daughter, Heidi, is controlled and practical. The younger, Sanne, is fragile and unpredictable. Neither of them is as ready as they said.

Bille August, who won two Palmes d'Or with Pelle the Conqueror and The Best Intentions, directs with a calm, classical hand, and the film is almost entirely a chamber piece: one house, one family, two days. Ghita Nørby is magnificent as Esther, dignified, ironic and completely clear about what she wants. Paprika Steen and Danica Ćurčić are wonderful as the sisters, two very different ways of loving a mother and of not being able to let her go.

It is a film about the right to die, but it never becomes a debate. It is about family: old jealousies, secrets that come out at the worst moment, and the strange tenderness of people who know they are together for the last time. It is quiet, sad and sometimes surprisingly funny, very Danish in its honesty. It was later remade in English as Blackbird. The original is better.