When Filipina mail-order bride Rosita (Mercedes Cabral) arrives in a small fishing village in the cold and bleak northern part of Denmark to meet the man she will marry, Ulrik (Jens Albinus), she becomes entangled in a quietly explosive love triangle.
She and Ulrik's son, Johannes (Mikkel Boe Følsgaard), fall in love.
Rosita is not the central character; it is actually Johannes who is the focus of the film, and the silent unraveling of his emotions as he goes through the pain of falling in love with his father's fiancee.
The emotional build-up and tension between Johannes and Rosita are lacking, but after the acknowledgment of their feelings, the weight all shifts to Johaness, and Følsgaard gives a riveting, resonating performance of a broken man; his agony so palpable, so evident.
From a character-driven screenplay, director Frederikke Aspock deftly captures the unspoken words, the underlying emotions and motivations of her richly developed characters, all intensified by the atmospheric mood of the gray, claustrophobic fishing town.
Rosita is a quietly profound drama; a modest and sensitive tale about heartbreak and searing loneliness. Is is also about family ties and survival shaken by the conflicts of the heart.
3.5 out of 5 stars
Catch the one-time screening on October 2, 2016, 7:30 p.m., at the Shangri-la Cineplex
FREE ADMISSION, as part of the ongoing Danish Film Festival
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