KVIFF 2026: The Guest
Trine Dyrholm is fantastic in this funny-sad drama about a mother whose mental illness has pushed her to the edge of her adult children's lives
In cinema, Danish family gatherings rarely go off without a hitch, and so is the case for Mads Mengel’s The Guest, which appears to be attempting to do for christenings what Thomas Vinterberg’s Festen did for weddings.
We’re braced for disaster from the off. The opening shot is of a seatbelt that’s been trapped in a car door, and it’s violently smacking off the tarmac as the car it's attached to speeds down the road. As metaphors go, it’s a doozy, suggesting a looming collision without a safety net. Initially, though, all is going smoothly for Karl (Simon Bennebjerg) and Emilie (Mette Klakstein) at their naming ceremony for their first child, Elliot. Their biggest worry during their bougie weekend gathering at an upmarket seaside hotel is whether to serve asparagus or salmon as a starter. That is until Karl’s semi-estranged mother, Vibeke (the great Trine Dyrholm), arrives unannounced. She's been secretly invited by Karl’s sister, Rikke (Josephine Park), who has stayed close with their mother despite a traumatic upbringing. Karl's heart hardened long ago, and he's put up emotional walls around himself and his new family.
But is Vibeke such a monster? At first you think: “What’s this uptight jerk’s problem?”, as Karl's mother is a riot. She livens up this stiff gathering with wild tales of hitchhiking, and she’s a wonderful, doting grandmother to Elliot. Sure, she might get a bit snarky when her less-well-read in-laws think that August Strindberg is Finnish, and maybe she’s being a bit of a snob when she discovers her son is now leasing cars for a living. Still, Vibeke's behaviour doesn’t warrant the panic in Karl and Rikke’s eyes whenever she opens her mouth.
The skill of Dyrholm's performance and Mengel and co-writer Christian Bengtson’s script is that Vibeke’s erratic behaviour only pokes through in fits and bursts. The siblings' attempts to micromanage their mother – one of Rikke’s regular tactics is slipping crushed sleeping pills into her Diet Coke – are far more troubling. But then this is how mental illness often goes: a seemingly benign personality tick to a stranger can be a warning sign to a loved one.
Also putting us on edge is Mengel’s filmmaking. Cinematographer David Bauer's camera seems to be running a beat behind the actors, with his handheld camerawork full of jerky zooms, along with Louis Emil Ramm Seeberg’s jagged editing, barely keeping pace with the worried glances and backbiting, while an atonal score chomps at our nerves. It’s film grammar that’s admittedly overused, but if it’s good enough for Succession and the Safdies, it’s good enough for this young Danish filmmaker.
The Guest initially plays as a nerve-shredding cringe comedy, but reveals itself in the second half to be a much more complex exploration of a debilitating mental disorder and the seismic effects it has on the people orbiting the sufferer. It’s to Mengel's credit that he never tries to offer a solution to Vibeke's condition. Dyrholm’s performance, meanwhile, is full of generous glimpses of the loving mother, now grandmother, who’s buried beneath her illness. While no quick fixes are offered, this warm, humanistic work suggests that the people around the ill person can find a way in, but it’s their responsibility to look for the door.
The Guest had its world premiere at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, where it competed in the Crystal Globe competition