Adam's Apples

Adam's Apples (Adams æbler, 2005) is a Danish black comedy from writer-director Anders Thomas Jensen that you can watch online on iFILM. A skinhead neo-Nazi named Adam is sent to do community service at a remote country church, where he's greeted by Ivan, a priest who smiles through a reality that would break anyone else.

Ivan asks the newcomer to pick a goal. Out of spite, Adam points at the apple tree in the yard: grow apples, bake a pie. Then everything lands on that tree at once — worms, crows, a lightning strike — and the silly task turns into a test of faith. Ivan flatly refuses to notice the misery around him: a cancer patient, an assaulted parishioner, a washed-up alcoholic tennis pro, an Arab armed robber. The parish has become a halfway house for lost men, and Adam sets out to prove to this stubborn believer that the world is cruel.

Jensen reworks the biblical Book of Job in Danish, with shotguns, deadpan absurdity, and pauses that leave you laughing and wincing at once. As Ivan, Mads Mikkelsen plays quiet madness you can't look away from. It won't suit everyone, but for fans of pitch-dark Scandinavian humor it lands perfectly. Stream Adam's Apples (2005) online on iFILM.