The movie is beatiful filmed, and the production is good. But the main actress Trine Dyrholm is not the right person for the role... It would have been easy to find a woman that could be masculine and at the same time attractive.

It has been a few months since I saw the movie so my take is not fresh, however the rating I gave was straight after the viewing and I still stand by it. I was thoroughly engrossed in the movie and found it captivating with superb performances by the actors, however there were two issues with the movie which I was able to overlook, but many others probably are not. The first is the need to suspend disbelief about how a middle-aged woman who clearly also looks as one is not recognized as such and so easily passes for a boy or a man. The second is the need to suspend disbelief about how such a middle-aged woman seems to be desired by almost every man from teenagers to middle-aged men who recognizes her as a woman. I hate to be saying this, but wonderful as the lead actress is, she is unfortunately miscast as she is not the right age for the role at all. Regardless, if you can overlook these hard-to-explain aspects of the movie, you will find an otherwise excellent movie underneath.

Okay first of all: No, of course Erna Jensen doesn't look like a man. Foreby, I haven't read the book and I don't know if she has masculine features in the written story, but I really don't see the logic in it, if that's the case, that would have been unoriginal I feel.

BUT - if we see past that, we'll see that this movie is mainly about a woman who would do ANYTHING for her son Kalle, who she has sworn to protect for as long as she lives! A woman who keeps a promise she made a long time ago and worries about the struggles her son would have in war because of his mental disabilities. And yes, this should fail from the get go, but Erna does what she must and at first has the "protection" (but who are we kidding, he just wanted a place to put his sausage, if you know what I mean) of Meier, and has no choice but to trust this man, who she knows better than the rest of the batallion, because they are from the same town. When that fails, she finds that motherly superpower most mothers have, although her son ends up saving her. But, the main topic of this movie is: a mother's unconditional and unmeasureable love for her child! And yes, she doesn't look like a man, and most of the army knows it, (heck, she was SO CLOSE to being caught) but she does not want her son dead, and this period in time ( and much later too actually - speaking from family experiences) did not see this group(mental disabled people) as people, and in this case, they just needed every man who could stand and run and had arms to shoot with a gun.

But I feel it's wrong to judge the movie solely on the assumption that Erna is supposed to look like a man, or that this role was not meant for a certain actress. I think Trine Dyrholm is brilliant as always and so is Anders Berthelsen - they are excellent in this story. The only reason I give this movie 9 and not 10 stars, is because I am unsatified that we don't see her child get born, but I have researched online and Erling Jepsen has written another book, hopefully this one will also be turned into a movie, and we hear more about the next generation I hope :D.