opossumd In my opinion, the story works at least on two levels.There is a socio-political level, on which the apparent message is: "Capitalism tramps on human feelings". This could be (but it is just a possibility) the director's message. Evidence for it is the sympathetic way the old employees and managers are portrayed, who are felled by "rationalisation" of the firm. Conversely, the negative aspect of capitalism is represented by the cold, scheming dowager, who thinks nothing of setting 200 employees on the dole, firing her son-in-law from his decision-making post, disrupting her son's family, all for the benefit of The Firm.The second level is Freudian. A power struggle is under way between the domineering mother (not unlike Meryl Streep's character in The Manchurian Candidate) and the rest of the family. She claims to be the "strong" one, as opposed to all the others, whom she describes as "weak", with the exception of her son. In reality, he is just a puppet in her hands, incapable of cutting the umbilical cord and going against his mother's wishes. Her own strength is, in fact, also a delusion - she would not manage to run the company on her own, so she depends on Christoffer as much as he depends on her. She reaches out as far as Stockholm, where her son mistakenly thinks he has found bliss with his beautiful and caring Swedish actress wife while eschewing the tentacles of family business. But with the excuse of his father's suicide - and here one doubts how big a part she has had in his tragic decision - she drags him back to Copenhagen and installs him at the head of what he had tried to escape. The fact that she insists that he, not his brother-in-law, become the leader is a clear imposition of her will. Another one is the coaxing of Christoffer into forming a relationship with the "family friend", whom he doesn't care about. But she is omnipotent, in his eyes, so in the end he'll have to give in and do what he is told. Breaking away from the wife and baby he loves shatters him, but he will learn in time – his mother teaches him – if not to despise them, at least to grow indifferent. A great, chilling interpretation by Ghita Mørby/Annelise; Lisa Werlinder is delightfully voluptuous and Ulrich Thomsen is confirming himself a highly talented actor. Per Fly directs an elegant, bitter movie, reminiscent of Ingmar Bergman's cosmic pessimism.

rse-1 Inheritance (Arven) is just OK. It's not a bad film, but it's far from great! At least it's better than The Celebration (Festen); a movie that I find absurd and pretentious. It's very well-photographed. The camera movement is less arty and self-conscious compared to the other Dogma-style movies that I've seen. The acting is uniformly good. The major thing that I dislike about this film is the story itself. The presentation is great, but the content is left to be desired. It follows the usual plot that you see in most family-saga afternoon soap operas. The whole time I was watching it, I was kind of guessing what will happen next. The movies didn't explain much where most of the major characters are coming from and why they are behaving the way they do. I particularly don't understand one unsympathetic character – The mother. You can't relate to her because you don't have a clue why she is the way she is. The attempted rape scene near the end of the movie seems to just come out of nowhere and was totally unnecessary and out of character. At least it didn't have a happy ending. I give it *** out of *****.

rupsfrazer I saw this film at the 2003 London Film Festival and was impressed by the way it treated its audience, as adults. So many films are blatantly manipulative, pushing all the right buttons to extract all the appropriate responses. And it seems we are generally quite happy to collude in the process. Not so with this film. We are allowed to find our own way in, so that everyone's response to it will be singular and specific.The performances are unshowy and honest - not so easy when one of the protaganists is a celebrated actress. The clash between desire and duty, a well-worn theme, is given depth and clarity through a truthful, unsentimental and no-frills piece of film making. I'm looking forward to seeing it again.

heidikvistgaard I absolutely disagree that Arven should be boring. From the very beginning we feel the dilemma of Ulrick Thomsen and is thorn apart the deeper we go in the story, as we feel his pain and his obligations. Per Fly is an exellent director who forces his actors to do their vey best and it shines through the whole movie. The acting is deep and sensitive. It's exellent. Director Per Fly also understood to make us feel all swallowed up in the story. It's an exellent movie. Intellegent, sensitive and it really makes you think about how to live your life.