Eve Tushnet
…then without warning swerve into reviewing another, better one:
“The Commune,” the new 1970s period piece from Danish writer/director Thomas Vinterberg, begins when architect Erik (Ulrich Thomsen) inherits a huge house. His own family, with wife Anna (Trine Dyrholm) and daughter Freja (Martha Sophie Wallstrøm Hansen), is too little to fill it, and they can’t afford its upkeep. So they have a sweet, laughing romp-through, the wife and daughter mimicking bird calls from the most distant rooms of the house to see if they can be heard downstairs, and then Erik is ready to leave.
But his wife stops him. She sees in this big house her chance to live the ’70s dream of communal living. Why not ask some of their friends to join them?
And so the morality tale begins….
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