A polished but disturbing period film with a ‘modern’ sound design, set in the years after WWI in Copenhagen, as an unemployed and pregnant young woman seeks refuge with an older woman who operates a clandestine baby adoption service.

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From the director of 2020’s Sweat, The Girl with the Needle managed to land a main competition slot at Cannes.  It is clear from the outset that this is going to be one of those bleak, monochromatic black-and-white films, set about a century ago in Europe. 

Some may draw comparisons to, say, Haneke’s The White Ribbon (2009), but Magnus von Horn’s work here is decidedly more ‘modern’ in style, particularly his focus on sound design, with low brooding gnarls and strong beats occasionally making themselves present in the soundscape. 

In a way, if Jonathan Glazer (of 2023’s The Zone of Interest) had directed The Girl with the Needle, it could have looked and felt something like this. 

As such, this mix of gothic noir aesthetic and a peculiar soundscape for a period film set during the poverty-ridden years after WWI will likely enthral viewers who are into miserabilist dramas. 

A young woman, Karoline (Vic Carmen Sonne in a terrific performance), finds herself out of work and pregnant, but she meets a saviour in Dagmar (Trine Dyrholm, who is also fantastic) who operates a clandestine baby adoption service out of a candy store. 

“You have done the right thing.”

As abortion is illegal, many young women have to give away their unwanted babies out of necessity to hopefully more well-to-do families.  Dagmar provides this noble service, or so Karoline thinks, in a film with an undercurrent of growing disquiet. 

In terms of mood setting, The Girl with the Needle is strong in its world-building, dropping us into the heart of Copenhagen with its cobbled streets and textile factories. 

The spectre of WWI’s aftermath hangs in the air as the subplot involving Karoline’s severely disfigured soldier-husband returning from the front gives us some moments that might not look out of place in Lynch’s The Elephant Man (1980). 

Largely compelling with strong attention to period detail, The Girl with the Needle should satisfy viewers looking for a polished European arthouse film with the capacity to shock and disturb.

Grade: B+

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Promo Clip: