Tribeca film Festival: WORLDS APART: DIRECTOR: NIELS ARDEN OPLEV

2008 New York Tribeca Film Festival:
| 2008 | 108 min | Feature Narrative

Plot
Seventeen year old Sara (Rosalinde Mynster) is, together with her family, a member of Jehovas Witnesses. After falling in love with "non-member" Teis (Johan Philip Asbæk)
Sara is torn between staying with her family or going off to establish a life outside of her religious roots.

Based on a true story. Denmark with English Subtitles

This is a coming of age film that has a delicate touch of subtlety in content when it relates to the interpersonal relationships of the family members. But when it comes to depiction of the religious “sect” the Jehovah Witnesses, the film maker is anything but subtle.

There are no lies in this film but there is an insidious rage at the tenacity of the “elders” to hold onto their own. Sara undertakes a coming of age struggle for independence with the high price of forfeiting all whom she has ever known and loved for the sake of her maturity outside of the religious fold. Sara is strong, knowledgeable about the ways of her church and seems impervious to the sexist irony of her father’s adultery that earned him only a demotion from the status of elder to ordinary member, whereas her sexual strivings bring her face to face with expulsion.

People are by nature seekers of human comradely. To move away from a cult which has been a part of one’s life since birth is perhaps the most difficult of human endeavors.
Worlds Apart confronts this struggle by using the strength of love as a vehicle, to bring emotional strength to those who undertake the task of leaving, moving on in life.


A timely film given the exposure of the Mormon ill treatment of girls and the overall policy of the federal government support for organized religion through tax breaks and faith based what-evers.


I recommend this film for the experience of breaking with our past while coming of age, and for the acting. Johan Philip Asbæk is an intense performers, an actor to watch for in future efforts.

This isn’t a great film but it is so ripe for today and the struggles we all see or are involved in.

Worlds Apart is an educational film with emotional impact.

Linda Zises