The boundaries between mother and son have been thrown out of the window sometime ago. Ingrid is the sort of woman who uses the toilet unabashedly while her bodybuilder son takes a shower.
No wonder Dennis lies to his mother about taking part in a competition in Germany in order to sneak off to Thailand in search for a bride. Ingrid berates her son not because she is morally offended but because she cannot fathom that her son could actually have a secret life.
Set in contemporary Denmark and in Thailand, Teddy Bear is a domestic drama which expands on Matthiesen’s much-lauded 2007 short film Dennis. Dennis is a mountain of muscle, a 38-year-old professional bodybuilder with a gruff face and a timid heart. When his uncle returns from a trip to Thailand with a new wife, the painfully shy Dennis figures this might be his own best chance to find a mate.
Unfortunately, Dennis’ attempts to meet women in Thailand backfire and it is clear during some of his half-hearted set ups that he does not have much experience in the sexual realm and is uncomfortable with the mechanisms of paid sex.
He soon finds love in the form of widow Toi (Lamaiporn Sangmanee Hougaard) who runs a gym in Pattaya.
Their courtship almost comes to a standstill when Toi refuses to kiss Dennis in public but this misstep is forgiven when she invites him over for dinner. Dennis also finds community in the form of Thai bodybuilders who desire nothing more than his company.
Dennis moves his body with economy and you can feel his awkwardness. It is only when he is at the gym posing with his male friends that real joy flashes over his face. Steentoft’s vicious maternal Ingrid is a great counterbalance to Kold’s gentle giant. You can sense her anger sputtering out under her barely polite demeanor.
The friend I went to see this film with at one point leaned over and said, “This film is like the Danish version of Eat, Pray, Love.”
Funnily enough, this film would be the antithesis to that Julia Roberts clunker. While Dennis does travel from Denmark to Thailand, his life lesson is not a spiritual awakening in the foreign land rather it is the unravelling of his relationship with his mother when she finds out that Toi has come to Denmark and that she could potentially lose her iron-clad grip on Dennis.
Unlike Roberts’ character in Eat, Pray, Love, who resolves her spiritual angst and gets her man, Dennis is forced to make hard choices. and the film ends on a bittersweet note.
Published in The Express Tribune, Sunday Magazine, October 7th, 2012.
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