A Danish melodrama about second chances when life knocks

A woman and a man dance together on a lively evening. It's summer, they're happy, they flirt, and they end up getting involved. This image is a common sight in many romantic comedies, but in Begyndelser [The Beginnings] poses an enormous dramatic question, because the protagonists are not strangers, but a couple who are divorcing at the same time that she is recovering from a stroke that has disrupted her life and turned her into a dependent person. The double taboo of the woman with an illness thus occupies this film directed by Jeanette Nordahl, which celebrates, on the other hand, the deeper meaning of love and commitment. Now, if the first bars of the film, dominated by the quiet tension with which Ane and Thomas—already in the process of separating—relate to each other, lead us to imagine a possible connection between the filmmaker and the most minimalist naturalism, a series of dramatic twists link this story with eschatological proposals, within eschatological proposals, within eschatological proposals. These are twists and turns that seem to betray the restraint with which Nordahl draws the restructuring of this wounded family, and while there are moments of overwhelming vitality—such as Ane's precious moment of emancipation through dance—others completely unbalance the entire plot.

[You can check the projections at original version subtitled in Catalan at this link.]