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Teddy Bear

By Ryan Mason · June 22, 2012

Danish filmmaker Mads Matthiesen’s Teddy Bear is what you might expect if Tom McCarthy had directed The Wrestler: a funny, affectionate tale of a socially awkward hulk of a man looking for love.

While Matthisen’s visual stylings take some cues from Darren Aronofsky’s sad film about an aging professional wrestler – notably having the camera follow the main character from behind as he walks through the gym – his storytelling sensibilities are quite different. Teddy Bear tells the story of Dennis, a 38-year-old professional bodybuilder who still lives at home with his tiny-in-physical-stature-yet-overpowering-in-emotional-dominance mother in a tiny town in Denmark outside Copenhagen. His glory days are long behind him, his room full of trophies and photos of when he was at his peak. But this isn’t about Dennis trying to revive his career. Instead, Dennis just simply wants what most people want: to find love.

Dennis’ incredible size – he dwarfs everyone to a comic degree especially his diminutive mother, who makes you wonder how he even managed to come into this world – implies that he would be overly confident, cocky even, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. In reality, Dennis is endearingly awkward and quiet. He’s shy, likely because of the stranglehold his mother still holds on him after all these years, but also because he knows that he doesn’t have the emotional vocabulary to communicate with any women that he’s met so far. All of this is conveyed in the brilliant performance by actual bodybuilder Kim Kold, who perfectly evokes the soft heart and tender soul behind Dennis’s behemoth-like proportions. Kold’s sensitivity belies his physical dimensions, making Dennis someone that you just want to hug even if the logistics of embracing someone that huge seem comical.

Matthiesen and co-writer Martin Zandvliet worked with Kold five years previously on a short called simply, “Dennis,” and spent over a year working on the script to Teddy Bear to tell the further tales of the loveable muscleman. Kold had no acting experience prior to working with Matthiesen, but you wouldn’t know it to watch him carry his first feature film effortlessly. In fact, nearly all of the actors in Teddy Bear have no previous experience in front of the camera except for the incredible Elsebeth Steentoft who plays Ingrid, Dennis’ overbearing mother. It’s a role that requires expert skill to pull off because on the surface we need to be so angry at how she treats Dennis yet at the same time sympathize with the vulnerability behind her actions. And Steentoft nails it. In fact, the entire cast are superb, a testament to Matthiesen’s excellent direction and fully realized script.

Teddy Bear is an absolute gem.