The Last Resort

A Danish family arrives on a Mediterranean holiday island for a few weeks of sun. Good hotel, clear water, a chance to reconnect. But it is the summer when Europe's great refugee crisis begins, and the boats are landing on the same beaches where tourists lie in the sun. The family are kind, liberal, well-meaning people. They believe in helping. The question is how far that belief goes once it costs them something real.

Maria Sødahl, who made the excellent Hope, has a sharp eye for the gap between what comfortable people say and what they do. The film sets the holiday, all pool loungers and cocktails, against the arrivals, exhausted and frightened, and lets the contrast do much of the work. Esben Smed and Danica Ćurčić are strong as the parents, both sympathetic and a little ridiculous, trying to do the right thing without giving up the holiday. Their children see more clearly than they do.

It recalls Force Majeure and Triangle of Sadness in the way it uses a holiday to expose its characters, but it is warmer and sadder than Östlund. Not every scene lands, and some of the satire is easy. But the central question, how much our values really weigh when they are put to the test, is uncomfortable in the best way. A Nordic film about Europe's conscience.