Skagerrak (2003)

Skagerrak is the story of being hit by happiness when you least expect it. In their late twenties and tired of partying their way around the world, Danish Marie and Irish Sophie come ashore... See full summary »

Director:

Søren Kragh-Jacobsen

Writers:

Anders Thomas Jensen, Søren Kragh-Jacobsen

Stars:

Iben Hjejle, Bronagh Gallagher, Martin Henderson

6 nominations.

Cast

Credited cast:
Iben Hjejle	...	Marie
Bronagh Gallagher	...	Sophie
Martin Henderson	...	Ian / Ken
Ewen Bremner	...	Gabriel
Gary Lewis	...	Willy
Simon McBurney	...	Thomas
Helen Baxendale	...	Stella
James Cosmo	...	Robert
Scott Handy	...	Roman
Kay Gallie	...	Housekeeper
Rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Peter Andersson	...	Dream Child
Tam Dean Burn	...	Dr. Meisling
George Carson	...	Guy on Boat
Andrew Dallmeyer	...	Undertaker
Russell Hunter	...	Priest

Storyline

Skagerrak is the story of being hit by happiness when you least expect it. In their late twenties and tired of partying their way around the world, Danish Marie and Irish Sophie come ashore in Northern Scotland. After another drunken night they are soon parted from all their accumulated cash. Out of money and out of luck ambitious Sophie pressures Marie into accepting a lucrative job as surrogate mother. Months on, Marie finds herself alone, life having taken a dramatic turn. Heavily pregnant, and wanting to terminate her pregnancy, she's on the run from the future parents, searching for Sophie's old flame, Ken. In a case of mistaken identity, Marie ends up in hiding with three strange men in a seedy Glasgow garage. But then happiness strikes again.

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Plot Keywords:

pregnancy | surrogate mother | auto repair | prayer | manor | 

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Genres:

Comedy | Drama | Romance

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Details

Official Sites:

Official Site

Country:

Denmark Sweden UK Spain Germany France Switzerland

Language:

English Danish

Release Date:

14 March 2003 (Denmark)

Also Known As:

Sweet Dreams

Filming Locations:

Arniston House, Gorebridge, Midlothian, Scotland, UK

Company Credits

Production Co:

Nimbus Film Productions, BBC Films, Film i Väst

Technical Specs

Runtime:

104 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Did You Know?

Connections

Features Custer's Last Stand (1936)

User Reviews

Not a great heart and a questionable series of plot actions but still worth seeing

Marie and Sophie work the fishing boats, going from one job to another. They get paid and move into a Scottish hotel for a few weeks R&R before getting back to work. When Marie is approached by well off land owner Robert with the offer of money if she has a baby with his son (who's own wife is unable to conceive). After much to-ing and fro-ing Marie agrees to do it and gets pregnant. However when Sophie dies, Marie is left alone and changes her mind and goes looking for help.

Marie's dream is of family and a nice home, a dream that seems far off with her wild lifestyle of going from port to port with her friend Sophie working the boats for enough money to hold them until the next job. This film appears to lack focus because it makes you think it will be an emotionally story focused on the baby, whereas really Marie is the focus and her baby is only one of the things that happen to her. In this regard the film does tend to wander, replacing emotional events with actual ones, meaning that the film feels like it is just going somewhere for the sake of going somewhere. It still has emotional involvement because Marie is a good focus but her life events over 9 months just seem too far fetched and unlikely in comparison to the story I expected from the first 20 minutes.

A big reason it works is the performance of Hjejle; she has a very difficult character and, while she doesn't manage to make it totally real, she does enough to engage the audience in her story. Henderson is OK but has a strange character that the script just moves around as it required. The support cast of Scottish actors are quite enjoyable including faces such as the ever-present Cosmo as well as Gary Lewis and McBurney. Gallagher does reasonably well but is secondary to the film in terms of focus, also she doesn't have enough to work with to really distinguish her from some of her other `rough Irish lass' performances.

Overall this is an interesting film thanks mostly to a performance by Hjejle that holds the material together better than it deserves. It doesn't have a great heart to it and wanders too far at times in terms of events but it is still worth seeing despite never really being totally convincing.