In my opinion, the story works at least on two levels.
There is a socio-political level, on which the apparent message is: "Capitalism tramps on human feelings". This could be (but it is just a possibility) the director's message. Evidence for it is the sympathetic way the old employees and managers are portrayed, who are felled by "rationalisation" of the firm. Conversely, the negative aspect of capitalism is represented by the cold, scheming dowager, who thinks nothing of setting 200 employees on the dole, firing her son-in-law from his decision-making post, disrupting her son's family, all for the benefit of The Firm.
The second level is Freudian. A power struggle is under way between the domineering mother (not unlike Meryl Streep's character in The Manchurian Candidate) and the rest of the family. She claims to be the "strong" one, as opposed to all the others, whom she describes as "weak", with the exception of her son. In reality, he is just a puppet in her hands, incapable of cutting the umbilical cord and going against his mother's wishes. Her own strength is, in fact, also a delusion - she would not manage to run the company on her own, so she depends on Christoffer as much as he depends on her. She reaches out as far as Stockholm, where her son mistakenly thinks he has found bliss with his beautiful and caring Swedish actress wife while eschewing the tentacles of family business. But with the excuse of his father's suicide - and here one doubts how big a part she has had in his tragic decision - she drags him back to Copenhagen and installs him at the head of what he had tried to escape. The fact that she insists that he, not his brother-in-law, become the leader is a clear imposition of her will. Another one is the coaxing of Christoffer into forming a relationship with the "family friend", whom he doesn't care about. But she is omnipotent, in his eyes, so in the end he'll have to give in and do what he is told. Breaking away from the wife and baby he loves shatters him, but he will learn in time his mother teaches him if not to despise them, at least to grow indifferent.
A great, chilling interpretation by Ghita Mørby/Annelise; Lisa Werlinder is delightfully voluptuous and Ulrich Thomsen is confirming himself a highly talented actor. Per Fly directs an elegant, bitter movie, reminiscent of Ingmar Bergman's cosmic pessimism.
There is a socio-political level, on which the apparent message is: "Capitalism tramps on human feelings". This could be (but it is just a possibility) the director's message. Evidence for it is the sympathetic way the old employees and managers are portrayed, who are felled by "rationalisation" of the firm. Conversely, the negative aspect of capitalism is represented by the cold, scheming dowager, who thinks nothing of setting 200 employees on the dole, firing her son-in-law from his decision-making post, disrupting her son's family, all for the benefit of The Firm.
The second level is Freudian. A power struggle is under way between the domineering mother (not unlike Meryl Streep's character in The Manchurian Candidate) and the rest of the family. She claims to be the "strong" one, as opposed to all the others, whom she describes as "weak", with the exception of her son. In reality, he is just a puppet in her hands, incapable of cutting the umbilical cord and going against his mother's wishes. Her own strength is, in fact, also a delusion - she would not manage to run the company on her own, so she depends on Christoffer as much as he depends on her. She reaches out as far as Stockholm, where her son mistakenly thinks he has found bliss with his beautiful and caring Swedish actress wife while eschewing the tentacles of family business. But with the excuse of his father's suicide - and here one doubts how big a part she has had in his tragic decision - she drags him back to Copenhagen and installs him at the head of what he had tried to escape. The fact that she insists that he, not his brother-in-law, become the leader is a clear imposition of her will. Another one is the coaxing of Christoffer into forming a relationship with the "family friend", whom he doesn't care about. But she is omnipotent, in his eyes, so in the end he'll have to give in and do what he is told. Breaking away from the wife and baby he loves shatters him, but he will learn in time his mother teaches him if not to despise them, at least to grow indifferent.
A great, chilling interpretation by Ghita Mørby/Annelise; Lisa Werlinder is delightfully voluptuous and Ulrich Thomsen is confirming himself a highly talented actor. Per Fly directs an elegant, bitter movie, reminiscent of Ingmar Bergman's cosmic pessimism.