听 Hodder Emanuel Jacobsen (Frederik Christian Johansen) isn't quite like anybody else. A dreamy nine-year-old with a passion for strange flights of fancy, rum whirls, and asking his stressed-out teacher (Birthe Neumann) impertinent questions about her perfume. He's a friendless, motherless boy trying to make sense of a strange, strange world. But when his mum returns as an angel and tells him that he must save the planet, wacky but touching Danish family comedy-drama Someone Like Hodder gets even weirder.
Deciding to save the world a little bit at a time, Hodder opens his atlas and discovers the tiny (and fictional) African island of Guambilua. All he needs to do is mount an expedition to get there. But with no friends and a dad who's out all night putting up fly posters, how's a little boy supposed to get from Denmark to Africa?
"TOUCHINGLY AFFECTIONATE"
Blurring the boundaries of fantasy and reality, Someone Like Hodder offers a touchingly affectionate take on the perils of growing up weird. Hodder's strangeness inevitably leads his classmates to bully him. Yet in reality, he's the least weird person of all (especially if the Icelandic girl who sits next to him in class with her lunchbox full of smoked sheep's brains is anything to go by). Convinced that life's disappointments can be overcome with enough rum whirls and a positive attitude, he's coping far better with his family tragedy than anyone could have expected.
Despite dealing with some quite adult themes - bullying, divorce, and bereavement - Someone Like Hodder never disguises its slightness of tone. Demanding children in the audience will probably be far from enchanted by its magical interludes - not to mention the caterwauling Danish pop soundtrack - but the film's love of its pint-sized, daffy hero is genuinely warm enough to win the day.
In Danish with English subtitles.
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