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Soap

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Soap (2006)

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Reviews Counted:11

Fresh:6

Rotten:5

Average Rating:5.5/10

Runtime: 1 hr 44 mins

Genre: Television

Synopsis: This Danish film is not a soap opera as its title might suggest, though it comes close in its way. Instead, this is the story of a sad transvestite prostitute named Veronica (David Dencik) who... This Danish film is not a soap opera as its title might suggest, though it comes close in its way. Instead, this is the story of a sad transvestite prostitute named Veronica (David Dencik) who becomes the neighbor of a surly beauty-shop owner named Charlotte (Tryne Dyrholm) who has left her successful physician boyfriend. At first, sensitive, soap-opera-addicted Veronica and abrasive, opinionated Charlotte can't stand each other, but a suicide attempt brings them closer and soon they're drinking, fighting, and bonding, and the question arises as to whether or not they will fall in love; they are also waiting anxiously for the letter that's supposed to arrive with news about Veronica's gender-reassignment surgery. Directed by Pernille Fischer Christensen, the drama mixes realistic dialogue and drab settings with a loose "cliffhanger" fantasy structure that helps offset the emptiness and desperation of these characters' existence. True to the Dogme 95 tenets, the film features little or no soundtrack music, a washed-out color palette, and naturalistic performances. Fans of stark Nordic character dramas and/or transgendered sex character studies like those of Pedro Almodovar will want to give this one a try. SOAP screened at the Berlin Film Festival and is presented with English subtitles. [More]

Starring: Trine Dryholm, David Dencik, Christen Tafdrup, Trine Dyrholm

Starring: Trine Dryholm, David Dencik, Christen Tafdrup, Trine Dyrholm, Frank Theil, Elisabeth Steentoft

Director: Pernille Fischer Christensen

Director: Pernille Fischer Christensen
Producer: Lars Bredo Rahbek
Composer: Magnus Jarlbo, Sebastian Oberg
Studio: Strand Releasing

[See More Credits]

Reviews for Soap

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1 - 12 (sorted by date; UK critics are listed first)
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[The film takes] some of its cues from the soaps and melodramas the characters watch together and others from a realist tradition of considerable emotional heft.

Full Review Source: Time Out | comment Comment
10/28/06
Ben Walters
Ben Walters
Time Out
Top Critic Icon Top Critic
N/R

Click to read the article

Full Review Source: Spirituality and Practice | comment Comment
01/03/08
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat
Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat
Spirituality and Practice

While I might want to applaud Fischer Christensen for attempting to say something pertinent about gender roles and stereotypes, there is something curiously lacking in the characters.

Full Review Source: Murphy's Movie Reviews | comment Comment
07/14/07
Ted Murphy
Ted Murphy
Murphy's Movie Reviews

Director Pernille Fischer Christensen is striving, I suspect, for a quiet seriousness and a respectful approach to transsexualism, but there's a point beyond which quiet seriousness becomes too-staid solemnity.

Full Review Source: Flick Filosopher | comment Comment
02/21/07
MaryAnn Johanson
MaryAnn Johanson
Flick Filosopher

Fear of Flying never got made into a movie. But imagine a 21st century version transported to Denmark with a transsexual thrown in for added titillation, and you've got the gist of the amusing melodrama Soap.

Full Review Source: San Francisco Chronicle | comment Comment
12/22/06
Ruthe Stein
Ruthe Stein
San Francisco Chronicle

A smart and assured spin on traditional soap-opera tropes.

Full Review Source: TV Guide's Movie Guide | comment Comment
11/03/06
Ken Fox
Ken Fox
TV Guide's Movie Guide

Another week, another movie about a depressed transsexual hooker.

Full Review Source: New York Post | comment Comment
11/03/06
Lou Lumenick
Lou Lumenick
New York Post

... the film is an anti-soap opera in the trappings of an old- fashioned sudsfest.

Full Review Source: New York Times | comment Comment
11/02/06
Stephen Holden
Stephen Holden
New York Times
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

The idea that these characters are willing to fight like cats and dogs, and destroy each other and themselves, to avoid confronting their intense attraction to each other is totally convincing.

Full Review Source: Salon.com | comment Comment
11/02/06
Andrew O'Hehir
Andrew O'Hehir
Salon.com

En soap never becomes too soapy, though the film does remain a bit mechanical and predictable at times, despite its rare insight in its subject matter.

Full Review Source: european-films.net | comment Comment
04/10/06
Boyd van Hoeij
Boyd van Hoeij
european-films.net

The movie strands you in two miserable flats with these cliche-ridden characters and a static love story that is as predictable as it is pedestrian.

Full Review Source: Hollywood Reporter | comment Comment
03/25/06
Kirk Honeycutt
Kirk Honeycutt
Hollywood Reporter
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

Christensen joylessly scrubs A Soap clean of sudsy silliness until all that remains is Von Trier-ian starkness.

Full Review Source: Slant Magazine | comment Comment
03/21/06
Nick Schager
Nick Schager
Slant Magazine
 
 
1 - 12 (sorted by date; UK critics are listed first)
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