The movie is worth watching due to the acting of Jesper Christensen, who was rewarded greatly afterwards for his performance. Also smaller parts by Jens Albinus and Lars Brygmann are worth noticing.The film lacks the simple ingredient: coherence, which is partially down to the terrible acting by Stine Holm Joensen (the daughter). And due her importance to the story this ruins a lot, especially the credibility of her character. She also coincidentally moves in right next to her alcoholic father whom she hasn't seen for 19 years which doesn't exactly give the start of the film nor the storyline a lot of credibility either. The development of the alcoholic Kaj might seem realistic from an objective point of view but because the actions preceding this development are non effectual you lose faith in the story. It is the sudden reoccurring of his daughter that ruins his daily routines and makes him act out of nature. Everything that happens to him throughout the movie is down to his daughter and grandson, the transition between father and daughter is therefore very important but unfortunately Stine Holm Joensen isn't convincing. The story has potential and could have been very great, especially considering the simplicity and originality of the film. BUT as successful an approach this might seem it also harms the film because it adds pressure and emphasis on the storyline and the acting, which the film simply isn't strong enough to carry. I actually laughed more than I was moved (mostly down to some really funny and clever lines) but I wasn't moved at times when I was supposed to. I didn't like the music of the film either. The red thread of it was confusing; Should one; cry, laugh, be excited? The film is recommendable of course - Not everyone would share my critical views, and the amazing acting, after all, from Jesper Christensen is worth watching. Too many mistakes though (acting, story/plot)in important scenes and sequences is enough to ruin it, for me at least. 5 1/2 out of 10

I can see on the message boards, that this film does not come with English subtitles - only Danish for the hearing impaired, so foreigners don't get much help ... however, the Cinema version should have English subtitles.It is actually a great shame, because this film is not really about something special Scandinavian.Above all, it is good to see, that really good movies touching important themes can be done without a Hollywood budget.There is an old quote in Danish culture: "People say that Jeppe is drinking, but they don't say why Jeppe is drinking". This film illustrates this point very well.But the film is part of a trilogy, so maybe they make a boxed set in the future with English subtitles ... one can only hope.

Here's a comment to this Norwegian Øysten guy! To me it sounds more like you have a problem with Danes in general and are just using the movie as an excuse to utter some very stupid remarks about Danish movies. You sound like a poor fellow with a self esteem problem. It's not our problem that Norway is not exactly the capital of film making right now. During the last 10 years or so Danish films have had an impressively high level of quality. Sure, there have been some not very good and some very bad movies, but the general level is high. If you take a look at the over-exposed American movies it's only a low fraction of those that are even worth mentioning and yet they are still dominating the cinemas everywhere, also in Denmark. Of course, the success of Danish films has made the fraction of American movies decrease a bit which is a very positive thing. In the 80's we excelled in extremely bad comedies so the last 10 years have been a giant leap forward. You can say what you want about the Dogma95 concept but it resulted in a series of good movies and a lot of fruitful discussions about film making in general. Now, Dogma95 has seized to exist (it was only intended to be officially "running" for 10 years) which is probably also a good thing because otherwise the concept could end up as a parody of itself. Dogma95 caused a little stir in the movie industry and rightfully deserves a note in movie history. It's like Lars Von Trier himself: You can love or hate him, but you cannot possibly ignore him.

I have now seen this film two or three times and am very impressed with the way it portrays life for a group of society's loser and how the main character in the film is forced to pull himself together and face the consequences of his past - something he just manages to do before his demise.Bænken is the first of a trilogy of film by director Per Fly. The second was " Arven" ( The inheritance )which was equally impressive but entirely different.The third and final film is called " Drabet" ( The Murder ) and is due for release next year . I'm looking forward to it.