Monas verden

Jonas Elmer's second feature film is roughly as flimsy as his first, "Let's Get Lost", which on the other hand had a quite special Dogme-like charm and believable characters, so you could forgive it a great deal.

Mona's World offers many funny and quirky individual scenes, but the characterisation and the plot are lame. In fact one might be tempted to call it the film of wasted opportunities, for who on earth would think of putting Bjarne Henriksen's ice-cold bank robber on a train to Aalborg and then leave him sitting around up there twiddling his thumbs until the end of the film? And has Mads Mikkelsen been cut out or what? As it stands, any old fashion model could just as well have played the part.

Sidse Babett Knudsen once again does a really good job as the protagonist Mona, a cautious office mouse who has more or less given up on life, until one day she is taken hostage by a couple of amateurish bank robbers. Then something actually happens to Mona. On top of that, one of the bank robbers, Thorbjørn, falls hopelessly in love with the straightforward but somewhat reserved girl. Thomas Bo Larsen is on shaky ground in the hero's role, for he is and remains a henpecked wimp.

Better luck next time, Jonas.