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This question looms as Robert (Jakob Cedergen), a disgraced cop from Copenhagen, arrives in the small town. Robert's new assignment is sold by his superiors as a chance to cleanse the pallet; any real trouble is to be kicked up to the authorities in Tønder. But the only cases that show up at Robert's door are reports of shoplifting and a battered wife named Ingerlise (Lene Maria Christensen). Ingerlise's husband Jørgen (Kim Bodnia) has a reputation in town for both his infidelities and for his temper; the unsettling sound of their daughter Dorthe (Mathilde Maack) pushing a stroller down the street signifies trouble at home. Fitting snuggly into the role of town femme fatale, Ingerlise seduces and abandons Robert in spurts, fueling the already fiery grudge between Jørgen and him.
The tone is eerie even before murder comes along but when, while Jørgen sits drunk on the stairs, Robert accidentally smothers Ingerlise to death after a bout of lovemaking, Terribly Happy, directed and co-written by Henrik Ruben Genz, begins to toy with dark, perverse comedy. Ruled as cardiac arrest by the crooked town doctor (a very good Lars Brygmann), Ingerlise's death sets off a wild and bloody chain of events that one way or another leads back to that same bog where the two-headed calf met its roaring end.
As much as it has been a sign of God-fearing, good-natured values and simple charm, the small town's isolationism -- guarded, draconian and paranoid-- has been a similarly apt metaphor for secessionist hysteria. At the sign of any mischief, Robert is implored by the townsfolk to let them handle it themselves and keep Tønder out of it; he complies and in turn becomes a player in the grotesque charade. The town's self-sufficient horror continues unabated, even when the Tønder officials come around to investigate Jørgen's timely disappearance.
But even as it grinningly redeploys its rote genre mechanics, Terribly Happy remains a study in moral decay and Robert's failed redemption. The crimes he witnesses in the town play like variations on the incident that landed the young policeman there in the first place. The town's people are a group of fascinating, entertaining misfits and Cedergren's pedestrian appeal helps to highlight the seduction of the twisted community. As he was protected by the blue shield after an incident with his wife, the town now has become his defense and will keep him safe as long as he reciprocates their quiet complacency. As any misfit would, Robert has chosen a sort of confined immunity rather than face the hazards and harm of reality.
Aka Frygtelig lykkelig.
Mostly terrible.
