Accomplishes the rare feat of believably incorporating violence in another part of the world into an intimate study of shifting domestic relationships.
Brothers (2005)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:70
Fresh:62
Rotten:8
Average Rating:7.5/10
Consensus: This tense, understated drama explores the complications of individual and social ethics stemming from the repercussions of war on one man and his family.
Runtime: 1 hr 57 mins
Genre: Foreign Films
Synopsis: Connie Nielsen, who has played pivotal roles in such English-language films as GLADIATOR, THE DEVIL'S ADVOCATE, and RUSHMORE, is the powerful and emotional heart of BROTHERS, a moving Danish film... Connie Nielsen, who has played pivotal roles in such English-language films as GLADIATOR, THE DEVIL'S ADVOCATE, and RUSHMORE, is the powerful and emotional heart of BROTHERS, a moving Danish film set in her home country. Directed by Susanne Bier (who made the Dogme 95 film OPEN HEARTS), BROTHERS tells the story of two very different brothers: Jannik (Nikolaj Lie Kaas) is a drunken loser who has just been released from prison for bank robbery and assault, while Michael (Ulrich Thomsen) is a well-respected army major and family man, with a wife, Sarah (Nielsen), and two kids. But when Michael goes off on a mission to Afghanistan to rescue a captured radar man, his helicopter is shot down and he is assumed to have been killed in action. The news devastates Sarah and her in-laws, while Jannik becomes more reckless before stepping in to help her and the kids build a new life. But as Jannik and Sarah grow close, it is discovered that Michael has survived--and has done something that haunts him and threatens everything and everyone. Bier's film is filled with tender moments as well as bitter, frightening, fast-paced scenes that are hard to forget. Nielsen is a standout as Sarah, who tries to balance love and loss and then love again with a man she's not sure she knows anymore. [More]
Starring: Connie Nielsen, Ulrich Thomsen, Nicolaj Lie Kass, Lene Maria Christensen
Starring: Connie Nielsen, Ulrich Thomsen, Nicolaj Lie Kass, Lene Maria Christensen, Andre Babikian, Laura Bro, Lars Hjortshoj, Niels Olsen, Rebecca Logstrup Saltau, Sarah Juel Werner
Director: Susanne Bier
Director: Susanne Bier
Screenwriter: Anders Thomas Jensen
Story: Susanne Bier, Anders Thomas Jensen
Producer: Sisse Graum Jorgensen
Composer: Johan Soderqvist
Studio: IFC Films
Reviews for Brothers
This is a tight, tense and extremely well-acted film, with no easy answers and an ending that felt was just right.
An appropriately uneasy blend of graphic military drama and tender romance, Brothers pulls no punches even as its worst violence occurs offscreen.
This is perhaps the most moving and eloquent film of life on the home front since Coming Home.
Well positioned on that slippery cliff called melodrama, Susanne Bier's grainy, intimate, almost claustrophobic family drama, Brothers, keeps its footing, never falling into the deep chasm of Soap Opera.
A meticulous, nuanced, hugely powerful drama about an already splintered family thrown into chaos by a seeming tragedy.
Director Susanne Bier avoids cliches as she studies the shifting family dynamic.
Bier tries to give us bleeding humanity on a plate; the result is unpalatable.
This Danish drama of guilt, displacement and brotherly love is all the better for its understatement.
While its focus is domestic drama, the film doesn't shy away from harsh scenes of wartime violence.
The Danish filmmaker Suzanne Bier's gripping psychological drama is her second film to examine events worthy of Greek tragedy through a contemporary therapeutic lens.
The deficiencies of Brothers lie in its wholesale adoption of war film clichés and obvious plotting.
This story might have been a standard melodrama in less gifted hands, but Bier uses a leisurely pace and subtly stylized camera work to make it an intelligent, deeply moving exploration of social and individual ethics.
Brothers emerges as no less or more than Bier's claustrophobic compositions and unimaginative choices.
Explores the primal emotions of sibling rivalry and the toxins of violence in those returning home from war zones.
Every plot point follows a soapy and well-worn path, but the characters speak to each other as if they've known each other their entire lives.
Again shows what skilled artists can do with a story that might have ended up filled with cliches.
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