The Guilty

Recalling the one-man-in-a-fix conceptual commitment of Steven Knight's Locke and Danny Boyle's 127 Hours, this tautly handled Danish procedural takes place in two rooms in a police call centre. We will spend the next 85 minutes in the close company of Asger (Jakob Cedergren), a short-tempered officer on light duties pending an inquiry. Information is carefully drip-fed by director/co-writer Gustav Möller, as our man deals with emergencies ranging from a mugging to a cyclist with a knee injury, until a call comes in from terrified abductee Iben (unseen but brilliantly played by Jessica Dinnage), forcing Asger to turn desktop detective. It would be a crime to pre-empt the ensuing narrative twists, which continually defy expectation. The minimal sound design is superb - water bubbling through an office cooler, Alka-Seltzer in a glass, a distant siren - while the gruelling ordeal is leavened only by a lyrical conversation about an aquarium. At one point, Asger is illuminated only by a red incoming-call light, as if he's entered hell. What might have been dismissed as a radio play is actually closer to pure cinema. A Hollywood remake starring Jake Gyllenhaal followed in 2021.