A lie can ruin your whole life: The Hunt

By Jenny Alvarez

Photo: Courtesy

The Hunt was directed and co-written by Thomas Vinterberg, the film is a disturbing depiction of how a lie becomes the truth when gossip, doubt and malice are allowed to flourish and ignite a witch-hunt that soon threatens to destroy an innocent man’s life.

 Lucas (Mads Mikkelsen) is a man whose career is ruined because of a 5-year-old girl’s false accusation of molestation. The screenplay is a master class in exposition, drama, character portraiture and sequence of many scenes and sensitive topics are involved such as sex abuse, mistrustfulness from of a small Danish community which needs to be handled with the sort of care afforded to genuine victims. The main victims strike a false note or soften the impact with consolatory sentiment while the truth comes out. This film is not an attack on the legal system that deals with child abuse investigations. The theme of the police and courts failing the innocent and protecting the guilty of Lucas during the legal proceedings into his accusations. The director assured a message full of discrepancies, intolerance, and resentment but at the same time each character is coming from- you might not agree with their actions, but nothing they do feels forced or unrealistic. This movie will make stay alert for any new Danish production because it is true art and won the Best Screenwriter prize at the 2012 European Film Awards, and was nominated for prizes in a number of other categories, including Best Film, Director and Actor. Magnolia Pictures will release the film theatrically in New York and Los Angeles on July 12, with a national rollout to follow.