Karlovy Vary 2026 Review: THE GUEST Serves Nordic Cringe as Family Dramedy

Danish newcomer Mads Mengel unveiled his feature debut, The Guest, in the Crystal Globe Competition at the 60th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival.

The film brings typically Nordic dark humor into a family drama following Karl (Simon Bennebjerg) and Emilie (Mette Klakstein), who are preparing for the christening of their newborn son. The ceremony and celebration take place at a hotel, where Emilie’s parents (Petrine Agger and Peter Gantzler), Karl’s sister Rikke (Josephine Park), and assorted acquaintances gather for the occasion.

Tension builds between Karl and Rikke over something that has obviously happened, though it is not yet clear what. Then Vibeke (Trine Dyrholm), their estranged mother, shows up to Karl’s dismay.

Mengel and co-writer Christian Bengtson gradually set the stage for a family shitshow. Rikke has remained in closer contact with Vibeke, while Karl appears to have cut their mother out of his life entirely. Without warning him, Rikke invites Vibeke to the ceremony; even the suggestion that she might attend sends Karl into an anxiety spiral.

Vibeke nevertheless arrives on her best behavior, to the point that Karl begins contemplating a reconciliation and allowing her back not only into his life but also into his son’s. The fragile family idyll does not last long, however, as the reasons Karl cut her off begin to surface.

The Guest centers on the shifting dynamics among Vibeke, Karl, and Rikke, gradually exposing the ruptures in their relationships. Mengel sets the family drama at a fast pace around the christening and Karl’s rising paranoia over how the situation might backfire. Among the film’s most uncomfortable scenes is Karl’s search through Vibeke’s personal belongings to determine whether she is taking her medication, a preemptive attempt to keep the whole situation from majestically backfiring.

The single-location setting and the scenes staged in small hotel rooms enhance the sense of claustrophobia, while Karl initially seems unjustifiably angsty about his mother’s presence. Mengel and Bengtson preserve enough ambiguity around the characters to make taking sides difficult, keeping the audience in a moral gray zone.

This is particularly true where Karl is concerned: his grudge against his own mother can make him look like an ungrateful brat. As the family history is unpacked, however, the reasons for Karl’s anxiety, and for Rikke’s reluctance to introduce her current girlfriend to Vibeke, come into focus.

The Guest belongs to the lineage of Thomas Vinterberg’s The Celebration, but shifts the tonal register for a younger generation. Swedish filmmaker Ernst De Geer attempted something comparable with The Hypnosis, a millennial response to Lars von Trier’s Dogme-era provocation The Idiots. Mengel similarly offers a millennial recalibration of The Celebration, taking the register and scale down while adding microaggressions and cringe moments. Rather than moving toward a full family blowout, the film materializes the erosion of a parent-child relationship in real time.

Mengel and cinematographer David Bauer (Danish series Doggystyle), deliberately move away from Dogme 95’s raw aesthetic. They opt instead for a smooth, glossy image, with the lighting paying dividends during the dinner scene near the end of the film, which is bathed in golden tones. Bauer’s camera hovers around Simon Bennebjerg, heightening the claustrophobic feeling as Karl’s anxiety and paranoia begin to take hold.

The high point of the film is Trine Dyrholm as Vibeke. The acclaimed Danish actress arrives in curls, glasses, and a masculine outfit that initially makes her almost unrecognizable. Dyrholm plays the character with careful opacity, while the film withholds the specifics of her diagnosis. At first, Vibeke’s behavior triggers a guilt trip in Karl, sending The Guest on something of an emotional roller-coaster ride and making it difficult to determine who is the victim and who is the oppressor in the relationship.

The toxicity begins seeping in under the radar as Dyrholm lets Vibeke’s microaggressions enter her interactions with her adult children. She lightheartedly slaps her daughter, but as the blows are repeated, the cringe energy rises to an uncomfortable level. Vibeke’s verbal and physical aggression rarely announces itself as abuse; it operates under the cover of humor, affection, and plausible deniability until the final dinner-table showdown.

The Guest is a bittersweet family tragicomedy in which Mengel keeps the outrageousness under control, never crossing into the explicit excess Lars von Trier so often embraces. The film represents not only a generational shift in tone but also a change in perspective within the dysfunctional-family dramedy.

The corrosion of parent-child bonds stems not simply from personality flaws but from mental health issues. This allows greater empathy for Vibeke as a semi-antagonist while still carrying an educational message without resorting to heavy-handed pedagogy.

The Guest won won both the Special Jury Prize and the Best Director Award at the 60th edition of the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival.