Miss Viborg review Pat Byrne

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Miss Viborg – Glasgow Film Festival 4/5 March, 2023

Cineworld, Renfrew Street, Glasgow.

Debut film by Marianne Bilcher, Danish filmmaker.

Solvej (Ragnhild Kaasgaard) is a dour, lonely old woman living in social housing in Viborg, a small Danish town, where in her youth she was the beauty queen. She spends her days driving round her neighbourhood on her mobility scooter selling prescription drugs to the locals. She’s trying to save money to buy a timeshare in Spain so apart from ‘making the streets unsafe’ she’s teaching herself Spanish. When she’s not gorging herself with foo, she walks her dog, Poul Reichhardt, called after a 40s film star,

Solvej’s next door neighbour is the young, rebellious and beautiful Kate (Isabella Møller Hansen). When she unsuccessfully breaks into Solveg’s apartment and injures her, the two are drawn together in an unlikely friendship. All these two women of very different generations seem to have in common is relentless boredom. They develop an uneasy alliance, lying and attempting to cheat each other but as affection grows we also see signs of hope and possibilities.

Both women put in great performances and Kristian Halken, who plays the kindly lorry driver Preben Elkjaer, introduces some welcome joyfulness.

Miss Viborg is a quirky, bitter-sweet, unpredictable and very different movie.

Pat Byrne, March, 2023

Buy tickets for Miss Viborg at Glasgow Film Festival