About.com Rating

Thomas Vinterberg haunting drama The Hunt marks a triumphant come-back for the Danish director. Vinterberg, who co-founded the Dogme 95 filmmaking movement in 1995 with Lars Von Trier and others, debuted his drama The Celebration (Festen) as the first Dogme 95 feature in 1998. Based on a radio story that was later revealed to be a hoax, The Celebration focused on a family's long-kept secret of pedophilia, and the ramifications that follow when this truth is revealed.

With The Hunt, co-scripted by Vinterberg with Tobias Lindholm, the director once again returns to the subject of pedophilia, with the focus now on the ramifications of false accusation. Vinterberg's style has also further evolved away from the strict Dogme 95 rules and asthetic.

The story takes place in a small, close-knit Danish town, Lucas (Mads Mikkelsen) is reeling from a bitter divorce, a custody battle for his son (Lasse Fogelstrom), and the loss of his teaching position. In an attempt to pull himself back together, he has just started a job at the local kindergarten, where he is adored by the children.

One of the children, Klara (Annika Wedderkopp), the daughter of his best friend Theo (Thomas Bo Larsen), becomes increasingly fond of Lucas. Lucas ensures she's taken care of when her parents are neglectful in getting her to and from kindergarten. He also expresses a compassionate understanding of her many anxieties.

Soon after the bond with Lucas develops, Klara's teenage brother, in a random moment of immature carelessness, shows her a pornographic image on his IPad, without anyone being aware of this.

Around this time, Lucas attempts to curtail Klara's overt displays of affection, such as kissing him on the lips and giving him valentines, and she interprets this as rejection. Confused, Klara makes a comment to the head teacher, Grethe (Susse Wold), inferring that Lucas has molested her.

More comments are coaxed from Klara by Grethe, all of them untrue. Lucas is informed by Grethe that a child has said something incriminating, but she refuses to tell him which child and what was said. Lucas is ousted from his job and then expelled from the community, without being given full information. When Lucas learns what has happened, he struggles to clear his name, but a full-blown witch hunt has exploded, threatening his very existence.

More children have made up stories about being molested by Lucas. Without any proof beyond the conviction that children would never make up such stories, the townspeople amplify their hunt, taking it to violent realms.

Mikkelsen, best known by American audiences for his villainous roles in the James Bond film Casino Royale and the NBC series Hannibal, gives a moving performance as an innocent man fighting a valiant, lonely fight against a lie.

The Hunt is a tense and claustrophobic movie. There are only a few scenes with bloody physical altercations, and those take place in the most civilized of locales, such as a church and a supermarket. The real savagery in the movie seethes below the surface. The terror and psychological entrapment in The Hunt may be more palpable than if this were a more commercial or Hollywood-made film, where the psychological experience would likely be diffused by a courtroom drama. There are no lawyers here, no politicians, no kind policeman. For the few who do come to Lucas' aid, his reaction to them is often at odds with his cause. The Hunt is not an easy film, and often moves at an uncomfortably slow pace, but the intensity of its atmosphere, its eeriness, with the inner and outer depiction of winter, stays with you long after the movie ends. The performances are uniformly strong, and Annika Wedderkopp as the troubled, charismatic young girl, is extraordinary. It is an uncommon addition to the usual summer blockbuster line-up, but as such, will likely be appreciated by many movie-goers.