Beyond (2010) User Reviews

The toll of an abusive alcoholic upbringing

[OJT · 8/10 · 12 July 2014]

Pernilla August has directed a heart wrenching story about a woman which has to get back to her dying mother after a lot of years with no contact. But already on the way there we understand that going back is something of the hardest thing she can do. Through flashbacks we see some of her childhood years in a alcoholic abusive home, which really has made her childhood something she rather would have forgotten.

Noomi and Ola Rapace plays brilliantly (being formerly married, they sure know how to find electricity in their relationship), but the price for great acting should go to the whole crew. The drunken parents are perfectly depicted in a film which I think maybe is the most brilliantly display of an alcoholic abusive upbringing I ever seen.

Filming is bleak, dark and very suitable for this story, which slowly grips you in a way that when the film ends it's a surprise to you that you just spent two hours in it's company.

It's also the best Swedish film I ever saw, and therefore I give a 9 in score for this. Very recommended.

Promising about a promise-lacking life

[stensson · 8/10 · 18 December 2010]

A woman gets a phone call. Her mother is dying. Reluctantly she takes the travel to see the mother and visits the apartment there she once grew up. It was a childhood of alcohol and violence and humiliation.

There are hang-ups from childhood which follow some of us. Even if we've left the environment, it's still inside us and sometimes a person has to die, for us to get rid of that. This is what Svinalängorna is about.

Good acting by the Rapace couple and sensitive directing by Pernilla August. In the end, there's catharsis in a very intense scene. The price is payed. You can have your past inside you as something that built you, but it's not part of you anymore.

Swedish actress Ms.Pernilla August makes her début with a nice family film about mother/daughter relationship !!!!

[FilmCriticLalitRao · 6/10 · 24 April 2013]

Films about mother/daughter relationships have always been popular with audiences as they enable a close assessment of ideas,opinions and sentiments with which most mothers and their daughters can be identified.As a film which belongs to "mother/daughter relationship" genre,Svinalängorna/ Beyond shows how the lives of a mother and her daughter are destroyed when alcohol wreaks havoc on their close-knit family.The audiences get to see how in a family with recurring scenes of husband/wife conflict, children suffer enormously as their childhood is annihilated.This film is based on a book written by author Susanna Alakoski who also tackles the plight of ordinary Finnish people in Sweden.Young Swedish actress Tehilla Blad is a joy to watch as the success of the entire film rests on her acting talent.Pernilla August,one of Swedish cinema's leading actresses makes her feature film début with this film which she jointly wrote with Lolita Ray.The influence of her mentor Swedish cinema maestro Ingmar Bergman can easily be discerned in all family scenes wherein efforts have been made to allow victims to express their opinions clear and loud.

Perfect film about alcohol and related domestic violence. Well told story and believable acting gets us involved from begin to end

[JvH48 · 13 November 2011]

I saw this film at Noordelijk Filmfestival 2011 (in Leeuwarden, province of Friesland NL). It stood out between the rest as it gave the audience a topic of discussion afterwards. Living proof could be heard around while leaving the theater, where dialogs exceeded the usual "What did you think? Good, and you?" platitudes with other films. Apparently, it brings about memories, or at least something close nearby. Clearly not an abstract issue from a different part of the world, or what only happens to "not our kind of people". Apart from the relevance of the issues involved, it was also presented in a believable way and with real world characters. Not all of them were coping very well with the problems at hand, but that is part of all real life issues. I had every reason to score 5 (out of 5) stars for the audience award competition.

The story starts with a sudden phone call that Leena's dying mother asked for her. In spite of having lost all contact many years ago, their subsequent journey forces Leena to relive memories from her youth. Alcohol and related domestic violence had a severe impact on her life. She never has understood how her mother could get on with it, and accepted repeated promises from her husband that he would improve. Her mother also failed to take proper care for Leena's brother, mentally handicapped due to an "accident" caused by her father. We witness a lot of that misery via flash backs, showing the gory details, and partly explaining her current behavior. Eventually, the family was split up due to an intervention from social workers aided by the police. It rescued Leena from the immediate problems at that time, but obviously not from the severe impact it had on her life.

Towards her mother she is very defensive and unwilling to forgive anything that happened and spoiled her youth. When the mother asks to locate her husband, Leena brings an urn. Apparently he died without the mother knowing. Nevertheless, the mother lets Leena promise to arrange that they can "rest together", proving a tight relationship between the couple, in spite of everything. It defies our logic and Leena's, to say the least, but from newspaper articles we learn this to be not unusual.

The above is told in well dosed flash backs that interleave with what follows after the phone call that Leena got about her mother in hospital. It all starts with a 600 km journey, together with her husband and two children, to see her mother. Leena is very reluctant to take part in this trip, but her husband insists that it is only human to follow up on that call. After the four briefly speak with the mother in hospital, they decide to move into the mother's house for the time being. Of course, the objects in this house trigger many memories, and Leena does not cope very well in explaining her behavior to her husband and children. Rather than confiding her direct family in what happened during her childhood, she withdraws. This does not improve after some heavy meetings with her mother. Sudden outbursts are the result, mostly triggered by seemingly trivial things, like cloths discovered by her children in some wardrobe.

The script arranges above ingredients ingeniously, presenting it all in a logical order. It not only tells us step by step what we need to know about Leena's childhood, but also shows that Leena rather had let bygones be bygones. Explaining to her husband and children what happened in her childhood, is not something that comes easily. While being logical in our view to share your problems with people you trust most, it costs her too much pain to even consider bringing it in the open. Her withdrawn behavior combined with several unexplainable outbursts seem to stretch family relations beyond their limits (hence the title of this film??). I cannot tell you that all is well that ends well (to prevent spoilers).

All in all, I cannot think of any negative comments about this film. All actors, including the children, act believably and succeed in getting us involved in the characters, even in the "bad" ones (mind the quotes). The structure of the story is next to perfect. Finally, as said before, the amount of discussion it triggered among the audience, is an extra aspect for giving high praises to this film. You should add it to your "must see" list.

"I'm looking for answers,From the great beyond."

[morrison-dylan-fan · 7/10 · 13 August 2019]

Whilst having found her absolutely incredible in The Millennium trilogy,I've been unsure about when to view this Noomi Rapace title, due to how grim the subject matter is. Reading from a fellow IMDber recently who is also a Rapace fan that they found tough, but very good,I got set to finally go beyond.

View on the film:

From the opening scene in bed, co-writer/(with Lolita Ray) debut feature film directing Pernilla August & cinematographer Erik Molberg Hansen make the colour blue be the most prominent recurring motif in the movie,with the light tint of blue during car rides and the families being surrounded by blue objects in their homes, bringing out a cold light of down clarity, to the fake, brightly coloured meek image they try to present. Closely working with sound editor Tomas Krantz, August makes the scenes of wife beating extremely beat, wisely trimming a score away, and keeping the muffled sounds of whimpers and thumps coming from the next bedroom as the lone noise.

Dividing their time line between the 70's and the present in adapting Susanna Alakoski's novel,the screenplay by Ray and August takes excellent care in examining the long-term effect physical abuse can have, highlighted in Leena being in a chillingly normalised abusive relationship, whilst meeting her dying mum, who tries to black out the abuse her husband/ Leena's dad inflicted on all the family.

Married at the time in real life, Noomi and Ola Rapace both give outstanding performances as couple Leena and Johan,with Johan's sways from romantic to violence given a unsettling turn by Ola, whilst Noomi pulls back into Leena's childhood (played by future Lisbeth Salander as a child, Tehilla Blad )traumas that have continued affecting her to the present, with no sign of answers from the great beyond.

Powerful acting but a bleak story

[Vindelander · 6/10 · 23 June 2021]

Can only admire Noomi Rapace's acting and that of the cast in this tragic and sad story. It's not going to make anyone feel uplifted for the experience of watching this film but it will certainly make an impact.

Not a film I'd want to see twice though.

An excellent drama with outstanding acting

[swefilmlover · 10/10 · 10 March 2011]

This is a drama that almost sets you in a mode of physical pain throughout the whole film session. The director Pernilla August lets the viewer become a part of the private lives of the people you get to know in this film in a way that's almost embarrassing. You just stand there, watching their lives falling into pieces while the alcohol takes over the control and you cry, not by sentimentality but a painful cry by pity and compassion. You are not even able to hate the dreadful father (Ville Virtanen) and the mother (Outi Mäenpää) letting this happen to her children whom she loves.

Seeing these things through the grown up woman Leena (Noomi Rapace) gives you the distance that you need to be able to suffer this emotional torture. She has hidden these experiences deep inside of her, but a phone call from her dying mother confronts her with her dark past.

The young Leena is played by Tehilla Blad and she carries this film with the same depth and intensity as her elder alter ego Noomi Rapace does. Rapace is the star actress in this film but Blad's performance in this film is the biggest remaining impression I carry with me when I leave the theater. ALL the actors make an outstanding work. The acting in Beyond goes beyond many good films and there is no weak link, not even the young children. The continuity between the girl Leena and the women Leena is exceptional. Not primarily for their look but for their expression and how you can read their feelings and thoughts in their faces.

Probably the best cinematic work on problem about alcoholism

[aminjacoub · 10/10 · 29 December 2011]

I saw so many movies regarding problem with alcoholism, especially focused on family issues. I however myself treated with that problem afraid to not become one (alcoholic), so I am very familiar with alcoholism and problems that it cause in life, from first hand.

Even I saw at least all of the titles about alcoholism that were published in film industry, as well all of the documentaries, I never found one that reflects that problem in reality so well.

This movie have all of the important elements showing how alcoholism influence life and what consequences it brings.

Great performances, screenplay and cinematography brings great result as a complete product that shows how alcoholism destructs family life and how terrible traumas it left on the most situations in family life , and most important, the children.

The main character of the girl in this movie follows her life with that traumas and reflections in her adult life, while her strong nature (as her father stated in one scene) keep her to survive that horror, unlike her younger brother who could not.

The spoiling would not be inappropriate here, as I recommend it for the viewers to see it.

This is not just great movie for all of us and for our families, surrounded by that silent killer (alcohol) but as a reference to medical communities that deals with alcoholism and AA and other similar social groups that needs a materials for therapy issues.

Personally I would like more constructions on some issues in this movie, but I think it is enough as there are probably no any movie title that gave so close picture to the problem about alcoholism.

A real masterpiece!

[lirmshrek · 9/10 · 9 March 2021]

One of the best dramas I have ever seen! The protagonist is amazing. The music is perfectly in line with the movie! This is a real masterpiece!

a wonderful and powerful film

[filmbuff1000000 · 10 August 2011]

this film blew my mind. it tells the story of a woman with a very painful past and she gets a chance to confront her past and not allow it to become a part of her future. in an interview in Italy when she was discussing the girl with the dragon tattoo with director Neils Arden oplev she explained that its not good to feel sorry for your self and that we need should take all the bad things if any in our lives and take them out on someone else instead of letting it stay and grow inside. i agree and thats what we get to see in this film is a woman who gets to express her pain and confront her abusive mother who is dying in the hospital. i highly recommend this film. Also i have also read a few comments on whether or not Hollywood will change noomi rapace as a person. i don't think so because she seems very content with who she is and where she wants to take the direction of her career.

Impactful

[scottstoll · 9/10 · 6 January 2018]

This film will leave a deep impact on you long after viewing. Using the common theme of switching between real time and a series of flashbacks to childhood, we're able to see the emotional damage done to Leena as she tries to bring order into the chaotic lives surrounding this family. After a tumultuous, nomadic upbringing with her binge-drinking father and co-dependent mother, Leena must deal with her own emotional baggage as she confronts the impending death of her mother. The parents' hard partying has made adult Leena angry, emotionally distant, and with a cleaning compulsion (typical). This film is so powerful, and I was amazed at how close to home Pernilla August's film was able to hit me. Any person who has grown up in an alcoholic home must see this complete (beautiful acting, excellent cinematography, restrained directing) document.

I should have been there (web)

[leplatypus · 10/10 · 17 October 2013]

This is really a deep (and very sad) Noomie's movie but if i have to take one thing, it will be that cry from her that i chose for my summary.

I think that i have already talked about it in my review for "You don't know Jack", but watching your old relative in a hospital is so far the more painful experience i lived! Like the movie tells with tact, every one knows that this hospital chamber is indeed a death antechamber and this realization is just unbearable for all of us, the family in bed as well the fit family. You don't even have to speak, the eye says it all and Noomi's ones are extraordinary for that. As you still hope for the unlikely miracle of recovery, at a moment, you have to leave for the night and as in the movie, later, you receive that dreadful call that delivers the long expected sad new. That's why Noomi's reaction is so authentic for me because it's exactly the feeling that should get out: " i should have been there" and as the movie depicts, all the surviving family cries in unison, bonding together. My experience was to have been raised in a shy family in which those kinds of feeling aren't not expressed with such violence so, even if i have a twin brother, i just feel so alone with my pain. At nearly 40 now, i really crave to experience it at last, just hug a loved one and cry all the pain i bottled up...

Beyond this sadness, the movie really cut another wound when it deals with dysfunctional family. If mine was a Vulcan one, at last, my parents wed for the better. Still together after 45 years with no real threats like alcoholism, abuse or jobless. Sure, there had been some rare tension with shouts, but never even a small strike! So, i realize that in that perspective, my brother and me are highly privileged to have such parents while in other family, this dream can really turns into a nightmare where kids are even more the victims than the parents. It was instructive to see that it was school that alerts social service as i really expected it was rather their neighborhood. Why? Just because, unlike what happens in France where neighbors are totally strangers, ghosts you never talk or know. Here, everyone welcomed this Swedish family and they just knew, i bet, what happens beyond walls. So finally, kind or distant neighbors remain helpless.

If this is really one of the saddest movies I watched, at least, it's not cruel as the little brother's death isn't put in pictures. It looms heavily all the movie and a bit like in "jude", "hideous kinky", you expect it to happen suddenly and you get tenser as the minutes go by. But finally, this last ordeal remains in words and the director is kind for that.

The cast is outstanding: the young Noomi is very talented and wait for the credits to discover 2 great facts: 1) this daughter and son are indeed relatives as i found that they were looking alike. 2) this young actress was also the young Lisbeth Salander so also another young Noomi and that's good for them to meet again. As for Noomi, she was as always very moving, unleashing all her feelings. It was also interesting to see her play with her husband and again dealing with a character, in a way speaking to her own personal story with her late father (a bit like Bono runs endlessly for the mother he loses as a child....)

RIP to all the one who departed ! May you be happy forever and wait to rejoice with you Svinalängorna(=beyond)....

Through The Past Darkly

[johno-21 · 8/10 · 28 January 2012]

I recently saw this at the 2012 Palm Springs International Film Festival. Noted actress Pernilla August makes her feature film directorial debut and for her first time out gets Sweden's official entry to the Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film consideration. Leena (Noomi Pace) is the daughter of Finnish immigrants to Sweden whose abusive and alcoholic father is long dead and her mother with whom she has an estranged relationship is in the hospital and dying. A series of flashbacks tell the story. Ville Virtanen is Leena's hard drinking, hard living father Kimmo. Outi Mäenpää is Leena's long suffering mother Aili who, despite all she put up with in her marriage, carries a life long love and sympathy for her husband. With Tehilla Blad is Leena as a child and Pace's real life husband Ola Rapace as Lenna's husband Johan. Based on the Susanna Alakoski novel with screenplay by August with Lolita Ray. Cinematography by Erik Molberg Hansen. This is a great cast and features great directing, cinematography, a good script and story and sound. It's a dark subject with spousal and alcohol abuse but not presented too darkly but very believably. I would give this an 8.5 out of 10 and recommend it.

Wish I hadn't watched it

[bzssnw · 23 February 2021]

Wish I hadn't watched it. Constantly going back to the past in small clips. Heart wrenching yes, but not the sort of film I was expecting. Brilliant acting but it just failed for me. I was pleased when it was over. Very unusual for me.