Oplev flawlessly captures the dilemma of a young Jehovah's Witness as she is forced to abandon her family for the love of a non-believer.

JBalslev

Worlds Apart is the first film in years that I have seen in the cinema more than once. Three times to be exact, and I can't wait to get it on DVD. It's hard to explain what it is that makes a film "re-watchable", but the fact that I each time I walked out of the cinema felt differently about Sara's dilemma, is one of the reasons that I felt I had to see it again. The film manages to maintain objectivity in its portrayal of the Jehovah's Witnesses. You are not forced or manipulated into disagreeing or judging them, but free to make up your own mind. Sara and her family's lives are great and carefree before she meets Teis. Some people need something like religion to hold on to in order to get balance in their lives, and the film's portrayal of the family is so charming (yet presumably realistic) that you can't help but envy the relationship between the family members. There is a mutual love and unconditional solidarity and respect that I at least have rarely seen in non-religious homes. I was not raised as and have never been a religious person, and I have never thought that I actually needed to bother with religious questions. But this opened the gates for me. I have rethought my whole religious standpoint. I don't see the fact that I ended up where I started, in any way as a bad thing. I needed to know why, and this film helped me.

Sara's dilemma is so identifiable that everyone is ready to discuss it from the second the cinema lights go up. The fact that people take this film with them home and discuss it days after they have seen it shows how universal this religious question is. There is no definite right or wrong and everyone, young and old, rich and poor, (Europeans and Americans) can relate to the issue and have an opinion about it. That is besides, great acting, great musical score and cinematic finish (editing is i.m.o. exceptionally subtle and unique) what makes this film important. Because that is the feeling you have after watching it, that you've just witnessed something important, that you wouldn't have been without.

Niels Arden Oplev yet again gave me an experience in the cinema that I won't soon forget, and I'm thrilled that this film will be representing Denmark at the Oscars (now we just need to get it nominated). I can't wait to share it with the rest of the world, and see if it affects you as deeply as it has affected me.

score 8/10

JBalslev 19 August 2008

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw1932454/