Wildland review – spiky Danish debut is equal parts gripping and frustrating

Wildland opens up with a 17-year-old girl, a car accident, and an arm cast that becomes a defining image for much of the rest of the film. So far, so Lady Bird. Yet, this Danish coming-of-ager is less concerned with quirky self-actualisation than in examining the corrosive effects of becoming an adult in a truly toxic family environment – one built on intimidation, misplaced sexual frustration, and petty criminality.

This 17-year-old is Ida (Sandra Guldberg Kampp), sent to live with her aunt Bodil (Sidse Babbett Knudsen) after a car crash kills her mum. Bodil is well known in the local community as the matriarch of a small crime family, enforced by her three adult sons who still live with her, but the hapless social services ship Ida off to Bodil’s country house anyway, and it’s not long before Ida starts to get folded into day-to-day operations.

Her initiation makes for Wildland’s most purely exciting moments. The environment created by Bodil and her sons is intoxicating, if a little strange (Bodil has a habit of kissing her, frequently shirtless, sons on the mouth, which Ida notes with trepidation). These boys are fun and grown-up and make sure that Ida feels included in whatever they’re doing, whether that’s partying at the club or picking the children of debtors up from school to deliver barely veiled threats to their parents.

You never doubt that a teenager would buy into this life, and Kampp makes for very smart casting, genuinely looking like a teenager in a way that is often lacking in coming-of-age films, making Ida genuinely vulnerable and the dangers feel all the more real and upsetting when they do arrive.

Of course, things have to go wrong and though it is initially gripping when they do, following a disastrous home invasion, it’s in this more conventional second act that Wildland’s core problem of not really having anyone to root for really starts to kick in. Every character here is, basically, a moron, which makes them all frustrating, while a very self-serious tone means there’s very little levity to make this cast of morally compromised dumbos more palatable. Even the more innocent characters are made less sympathetic by their inability to ever make the right choice. Though it’s a fitting choice for a film about rural thuggery, it does wear thin.

Wildland is director Jeanette Nordahl’s first film, and it is promising in its stylish execution and strong performances, but her inexperience does shine through at some unfortunate points, especially towards the ending, where Nordahl’s careful, considered focus starts to fall apart, letting you out of the cinema on a frankly confusing note.

There’s bold filmmaking on show here and Nordahl is clearly a talent to watch, but Wildland is an imperfect debut. It’s sometimes thrilling, sometimes marred by a script and an edit that each seem to have needed just one more pass, but always a striking calling card for the young talent both in front of and behind the camera.

Wildland is in UK cinemas from 13 August.