Each of the women has secret moral failings, at least if one buys into the logic of the script - though one probably shouldn't take the psychology of it too seriously given its crude premise. Sexual jealousy and health concerns complicate the picture. Could bitterness have prompted her to do this?Īs further incidents occur, extending to a possible murder, everyone's paranoia grows and different members of the group come under suspicion. She's also recently been turned down for work she really wanted to do. Camilla is the outsider, exhibiting the kind of stressed and submissive behaviour that only makes the others dislike her more. The fact that the other two haven't prompts a discussion which gradually gives way to suspicion. They're currently gathering evidence against a Serbian war criminal and when the former two receive death threats they immediately suspect that he is behind them. And then they learn that Interpol has traced Mirko Zigic to Denmark.THE EXCEPTION is a unique and intelligent thriller, heralding Christian Jungersen as a gifted storyteller and keen observer of the human psyche.A character-based thriller set in a Danish institute for the study of genocide, this adaptation of the Christian Jungersen novel boils it down to one simple question: why do people do bad things? The more interesting implied question - what makes most people think that they would never do bad things? - goes unaddressed as what might have been an edgy little thriller is transformed by Borgen director Jesper W Nielsen into the kind of bitchy workplace drama that will make many viewers grateful for the Covid lockdown.įour women share an office at the institute: Iben (Danica Curcic), Malene (Amanda Collin), Anne-Lise (Borgen star Sidse Babett Knudsen) and Camilla (Lene Maria Christensen). They discover that none of them is exactly the person she seems to be. The cruelty which the women have described from a safe distance is now revealed in their own world. Yet these are people who daily analyze cases of appalling cruelty on a worldwide scale, and who are intimate with the psychology of evil. Their obsession turns into a witch hunt as they resort to bullying and victimization. The threats increase and soon the office becomes a battlefield in which each of the women's move is suspect. As the tensions mount among the women, their suspicions turn away from Zigic and toward each other. When two of them receive death threats, they immediately believe that they are being stalked by Mirko Zigic, a Serbian torturer and war criminal, whom they have recently profiled in their articles. Four women work together for a small nonprofit in Copenhagen that disseminates information on genocide. A bestseller throughout Europe, THE EXCEPTION is a gripping dissection of the nature of evil and of the paranoia and obsessions that drive ordinary people to commit unthinkable acts.

The exception by christian jungersen