The Kiss Parent Guide

Determined to restore his family’s honor, Anton Abildgaard is training as an officer with the Danish cavalry. After pushing a car out of the mud for an elderly man who turns out to be a local aristocrat, Anton is delighted to be invited for dinner at Castle Løvenskjold. Fine food is followed by a dance and Anton asks Edith, the Baron’s beautiful daughter, for a turn around the floor. What he doesn’t know is that Edith can’t walk, let alone dance, and her tearful response mortifies Anton.

Desperate to make amends, Anton sends flowers to the young woman and is soon spending his free time at the castle, playing chess and learning about Edith’s passion for ballet. Misunderstood emotions and a well-intentioned lie lead to anguish and hurt, and Anton starts to slip on his military duties. This would be problematic at any time, but it’s 1914 and war clouds are gathering over Europe.

The Kiss is not the film I expected. I assumed it would be an elegiac romance set in Europe’s last golden summer, to be followed with scenes of trench warfare. Instead, this movie is both a soapy tale about a messy relationship and a morality play focused on the evils of dishonesty.

When Anton becomes more heavily involved with the Løvenskjold household, Edith’s doctor utters the most important lines in the script: “Only by seeing beyond your own needs can you actually help another person.” Unfortunately, Anton doesn’t take that advice. Instead of prioritizing Edith’s need for honesty and being willing to have difficult conversations, Anton chooses the path of least resistance. Desperate to avoid even temporary emotional upsets or awkwardness, he tells well-intentioned lies, with consequences he could never have predicted.

This is a painful film to watch. The characters are difficult to warm up to: Edith is imperious, emotionally volatile, and prone to tantrums. I appreciate that the screenwriters didn’t make their disabled character unrealistically saintly, but it would be easier to swallow the tale if she were less obnoxious. As for Anton, his compassion is initially appealing, until his selfishness and cowardice make his personal weaknesses impossible to miss. He might say he doesn’t want to tell the truth to Edith to protect her, but it looks suspiciously as if he’s protecting himself from her anger and hurt. That doesn’t look heroic – or even decent – to me.

The problems with the script are all the more irksome because the film looks good. The Danish settings are beautiful and will surely encourage travel to the kingdom. The costumes are also a delight for fans of period films. The production even has comparatively low negative content, with no profanity, sexual content that’s limited to kissing, and some alcohol consumption. Spoiler: The most serious content issue in the film is its treatment of suicide, which is mentioned, attempted, and later carried out. Instead of being panicky, painful or fearful, this act is beautiful and peaceful, almost balletic in its grace. This dreamy depiction of suicide makes the movie unsuited to teen audiences, despite the relatively moderate content elsewhere in the film. I’m not sure it will appeal to adult audiences either: the central relationship is unsatisfying and doesn’t have the chemistry sought by romance fans and there isn’t enough warfare for fans of military movies. The Kiss just fails to connect.