‘The Girl with the Needle’ film review: Magnus von Horn’s thought-provoking true crime thriller is a terrifyingly sordid affair

The Melancholy of Magnus Von Horn girl with needle Intimate and inevitable. Inspired by the story of Dagmar Overbye, a Danish babysitter who became a serial killer in the 1920s, Von Horn created the story of how to save your most vulnerable, based on extraordinary performances by Trine Dyrholm and Vic Carman Gold. A supernatural picture of existence has been prepared in the created society. ,

The film takes us into the stifling gloom of early 20th century Copenhagen – you can practically smell the delectable mix of soot and body odor. Comparison of Kantemir Balagov beanpole Given its obsessive focus on the enormous burden of despair, moral degradation and systemic failure are inevitable. Yet, in contrast to the brutality of Balagov’s vision, it wraps its bleakness in a strange, almost cruel sympathy for those forgotten souls (although that sympathy can be clouded with a mixture of disturbing imagery, should you wish. You can clean it from your memory) with industrial-strength bleach).

From the first frame, Von Horn makes it clear that the world his characters live in is constantly hostile, filled with sweat, dirt, and danger. The city itself is a montage of silhouettes, captured by Michel Dimeck in extremely bleak, high-contrast black and white, calling to mind the claustrophobia of German Expressionism. Each frame looks like an old photograph that someone has forgotten to clean of dust, its cracks and shades eliminating what little hope exists.

Copenhagen itself feels like it could swallow its poor residents whole. The city is presented as a soul-sucking burg of narrow streets and cramped, dilapidated rooms, while the droning dissonance of Friedrich Hoffmeier’s score only enhances the feeling of entrapment.

A scene from ‘The Girl with the Needle’ Photo Credit: MUBI

The story centers on Caroline, the son of Vic Carmen, who is on the brink of poverty. Her husband, presumed dead in the Great War, returns disfigured and an alien – the ghost of the marriage that once was. Her efforts to escape poverty are thwarted at every turn: eviction looms, employment is lost, and a fleeting affair with her wealthy employer culminates in rejection. Alone and pregnant in a world that scoffs at her plight, she stumbles through life with wavering determination. It is in this desperation that she encounters Dagmar (Trine Dyrholm), a generous caregiver with a simple business proposition: hand over the child for a fee, and it will be placed in a respectable home.

Gold’s performance is clean and immediate, her hollow-eyed gaze conveying a weariness that words can’t convey, and her thin face and feverish outbursts reveal much about a life defined by deprivation. Even though her choices are dictated by the oppressive structures around her, Son still imbues Caroline with a sense of agency, and her arc soon evolves from survival to liberation.

However, von Horn’s portrayal of Dagmar is where the film achieves its most unsettling brilliance. Dyrholm’s restraint is utterly disturbing, and she completely disappears into this woman who has found a way to survive in a world that offers her no mercy. The veil of maternal concern hides something very insidious, but Dyrholm never allows Dagmar to become a target of satire. She’s terrifying because she’s understandable.

Von Horn and co-writer Line Langbaek have taken a calculated risk in shifting most of the narrative focus away from Dagmar and onto Caroline. This choice transforms the film from a simple retelling of infamous crimes into something more layered. Caroline becomes a surrogate for the many women whom Dagmar preyed upon – poor, desperate, and abandoned by a society unwilling to make room for their survival. By aligning our perspective with Caroline’s, von Horn’s moral reckoning balances the stories of women crushed under the weight of patriarchal indifference, as well as the stories of the woman who became their executioner.

A scene from ‘The Girl with the Needle’ Photo Credit: MUBI

By the time the film moves toward its inevitably grim conclusion, it abandons any pretense of subtlety and embraces the ups and downs of Gothic horror with surprising finesse—in some ways, Robert Eggers’s recent digressions into the genre. Manages to overcome. Still, von Horn hangs on to a sliver of light, while Caroline stands on the brink of a choice: perpetuate the machinery of cruelty or finally, mercifully, dismantle it.

girl with needle Either way, this is not a comfortable watch. Nor does it care. Its unflinching look at the intersection of poverty, gender, and systemic violence cuts provocatively close to the marrow of our present moment. There are no lofty philosophical or moral propositions in it. Just the ugly, stark reality that society has no use for women like Caroline and Dagmar. They are discarded, methodically taken apart and reused in strange ways, making their pain even more unbearable.

Today, women’s body sovereignty is in a deadly siege, girl with needle This alarm is ringing louder than anyone is willing to admit. History is not so much the past as it is always hidden, waiting to remind us how little we have learned.

The Girl with the Needle is currently streaming on MUBI