In a Better World

In a Better World (Hævnen, 2010) is a Danish drama you can watch online on iFILM. Director Susanne Bier's film took both the Academy Award and the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film.

Anton is a doctor who splits his time between a Danish suburb and a refugee camp in Africa. Years of working in a conflict zone have made him a firm believer in absorbing violence rather than returning it. Back home, a local bully humiliates him in front of his son Elias, and Anton walks away. Elias, who is being bullied at school himself, has just befriended Christian — a recently arrived boy from London still raw from his mother's death. Christian does not believe in walking away. When the two boys decide to act, the consequences reach further than either of them imagined. Mikael Persbrandt and Trine Dyrholm play the adults navigating the fallout.

Bier sets the same question in three different environments — a school yard, a quiet Danish town, a war-adjacent field hospital — and refuses to resolve it cleanly. Watch In a Better World online on iFILM.