Fjord review

Fjord follows a religiously conservative Romanian family living in Sweden. At first, they're just a rather sweet family going about their lives. But they're living in a society with very different ideas about religion, parenting, bodily autonomy, and the state's role in protecting children.

When one of the children shows up at school with a bruise, the authorities begin investigating. It's never established clearly where the injury came from. There's no convincing showing that the parents abused their child. But the Swedish child-protection authorities come after the family aggressively, take the children away, and put the parents in the position of having to prove that their household and religious values satisfy the state's secular standards.

I found the state's behavior outrageous. The authorities are ostensibly protecting children, and perhaps they sincerely believe that's what they're doing. But protecting them from what? From actual abuse, or simply from being raised by religious conservatives? The officials' hostility toward religion is pretty apparent, and the whole situation has an unmistakable element of secular bigotry.

I don't think the film necessarily needs to present some artificial balance here. If someone is accused of something they didn't do, there's no obligation to manufacture a competing case against them just to make the story seem evenhanded. The film never shows that these parents committed the abuse they're suspected of committing. That matters.

The removal of the children is particularly affecting. Sebastian Stan is excellent as the father. In fact, I didn't even recognize him while I was watching. It wasn't until a friend pointed out afterward that he'd played the role that I realized who it was. He inhabited the character so completely that I never saw the familiar actor underneath.

I recognize that this is a film, and I don't know enough about the Swedish child-protection system to say whether it's a fair representation of how the country actually handles cases like this. Someone with direct experience may have a very different perspective. But if the system really does operate this way, shame on them.

The film is forceful in its portrayal of the conflict between a religious family and a secular state, and it certainly got the reaction it was looking for from me. I spent much of it cheering for this family to get their children back and get themselves home to Romania, where, frankly, they probably should have stayed in the first place.

I thought it was excellent. Go see it.