Magnus von Horn's Palme d'Or-nominated The Girl with the Needle is the darkly compelling tale of Karoline (Vic Carmen Sonne), a young Danish woman whose pregnancy leads to her friendship with the kind and charming Dagmar (Trine Dyrholm). Together, the two women help impoverished new mothers put their unwanted children up for adoption, but their alliance isn't quite what it seems.
Sitting satisfyingly between genres, The Girl with the Needle offers both a dark fairy tale and psychological thriller. Von Horn wisely chooses storytelling over historical accuracy, leaving audience members on the edge of their seats as they drink in the striking costumes and sets.
Though the film finds its inspiration from a real-life Danish serial killer, von Horn and co-writer Line Langebek take the perspective of the fictional Karoline, who fights to survive poverty in Copenhagen. The Girl with the Needle differs from most women-led historic fiction pieces by never truly being tender towards its protagonist. Often, women-based stories aim to show their female characters overcoming their circumstances and beating the odds. Watching Karoline slide from horrible circumstance to terrible situation like a sewer rat, narrowly avoiding the feet of the men who wish to stomp her out in disgust or else take her home like a pet, feels like witnessing a villain origin story.
Karoline does things that might be frowned upon in a lesser film — from leaving behind her disfigured soldier husband to allowing a rich man to impregnate her in hopes of using his money for a better life. The Girl with the Needle is not a character study, however. Karoline has no back story, no inner monologue. She lives day by day in the only reality she's ever known.
The titular needle works perfectly for the unsettling theme and style of the film. Multiple meanings represent a diverse range of roles and difficulties women faced in 1919 Denmark, such as poorly-paid factory work and forced pregnancies. Though this could get bleak, the arthouse style, eerie ambient soundtrack and gorgeous monochrome palette contrast the blunt subject matter. The beauty of the art itself offsets the pain the character's face, leaving a sense of magical realism reminiscent of Lars von Trier.
Although Karoline faces enough trials to nicely offset what could have been sleepy pacing, the plot wanders from place to place with her, making an otherwise intense film feel like a slice-of-life story, albeit a gripping one.
The Girl with the Needle wraps up in a positive way for Karoline — a little too easily, given how she spends the whole film inches away from disaster. At the very least, the final scenes do touch most upon the true story of Dagmar Overbye, which is sure to satisfy true crime and history buffs who watch The Girl with the Needle for a film about one of Denmark's most notorious serial killers.