- Date de sortie : 23 décembre 1998 (1h 45min)
- Réalisé par : Thomas Vinterberg
- Avec : Henning Moritzen, Ulrich Thomsen, Thomas Bo Larsen
- Genre : Comédie dramatique
- Nationalité : Suédois, danois
Interdit aux moins de 12 ans
Tout le monde a été invité pour les soixante ans du chef de famille. La famille, les amis se retrouvent dans le manoir d'Helge Klingenfelt. Christian, le fils aîné de Helge, est chargé par son père de dire quelques mots au cours du dîner, sur sa soeur jumelle, Linda, morte un an plus tôt. Tandis qu'au sous-sol tout se prépare avec pour chef d'orchestre Kim, le chef cuisinier, ami d'enfance de Christian, le maître de cérémonie convie les invités à passer à table. Personne ne se doute de rien, quand Christian se lève pour faire son discours et révéler de terribles secrets.
Plot
Respected family patriarch and businessman Helge (Henning Moritzen) is celebrating his 60th birthday at the family-run hotel. Gathered together amongst many family and friends are his wife Else (Birthe Neumann), Christian (Ulrich Thomsen), his sullen eldest son, his well-traveled daughter Helene (Paprika Steen), and Michael (Thomas Bo Larsen), his boorish younger son. Christian's twin sister, Linda, recently committed suicide at the hotel. Before the celebration dinner, Helene finds Linda's suicide note, but hides it after becoming upset by the contents (which are not revealed to the audience). Michael fights with his wife, whom he earlier abandoned on the roadside with their three children, and then makes love to her. Michael later is pulled aside by a waitress whom he had an affair with (and had made pregnant) and then beats her when she disparages Helge. Later, during dinner, Christian makes a speech to the family in which he accuses his father Helge of sexually abusing him and his late sister Linda. Helge's family and friends initially dismiss the accusations as absurd, a joke, or a figment of Christian's imagination. In a private conversation in the pantry, a seemingly baffled Helge asks Christian about his motivations for slandering him, and a Christian appears to recant from his accusation. However, Christian is spurred to further action by hotel chef Kim (Bjarne Henriksen), a childhood friend who knows about the abuse. Christian then stands up and continues his toast by accusing Helge of causing Linda's death. Helge speaks to Christian alone and threateningly offers to announce in a toast Christian's troubled personal history, impotence with women and his perhaps inappropriately close relationship with his late sister, Linda. Christian says nothing in response to the threat. Further exacerbating the tensions of the day, Helene's black boyfriend Gbatokai (Gbatokai Dakinah) shows up, enraging the racist Michael who later leads most of the partygoers in a racist children's song to offend him. During a toast, Else makes a series of back-handed compliments towards her children, accusing Christian of having an overactive imagination as a child and asking him to apologize for his earlier accusation. Christian responds by accusing her of interrupting Helge during one of the rapes, yet not interfering with the incident, and calling her a "cunt". Michael and two other guests violently eject Christian from the hotel. When Christian walks back in, they beat Christian and tie him to a tree in the nearby woods. Christian's accusations are confirmed when Helene, apparently finally worn down by guilt, reads Linda's suicide note aloud to the assembled guests. Linda's note states that she decided to kill herself after feeling overwhelmed by dreams in which her father was molesting her again. In a fit of anger, Helge admits to the abuse in front of all the guests by saying that it was all Christian was good for. He then leaves the dining room with the guests stunned. Christian, who is drunk, faints after walking out of the dining hall and imagines seeing Linda. When he awakes, he learns from Helene that Michael is missing. We learn that the drunken Michael has called Helge outside and then beat his father severely, promising him that he will never see his grandchildren again. The next morning, Helge speaks to the group, admits his wrongdoing and declares his love for his children. Michael coolly dismisses their father from the table, stating that he should now leave so that they can have breakfast. Christian reveals that he is going back to Paris, and asks one of the waitresses, Pia (who has known Michael for years), to accompany him. She accepts, and the film ends with the rest of the family and guests eating breakfast nonchalantly.
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