The Hypnotist

It's a gruesome crime that crime commissioner Joona Linna (Tobias Zilliacus) is confronted with just before Christmas in Stockholm. First, the body of a gym teacher is found in the gym of a school. A short time later, the bodies of his wife and young daughter are also found in the teacher's house. Only the older son Josef (Jonatan Bökman) survived the massacre badly injured, but is in a coma after the brutal attack. In order to get the important clues to catch the perpetrator that only Josef can provide him, Linna asks the controversial doctor and hypnotist Erik Maria Mark (Mikael Persbrandt) to interrogate the boy under hypnosis. In fact, the project initially seems to be crowned with success, but after Josef's condition drastically deteriorates during the hypnosis, Mark breaks off the treatment before Linna has received his information. The detective suspects there is more to the gruesome murders than first meets the eye - a suspicion confirmed when Mark's son Benjamin is kidnapped and threatened with his murder if Josef is interrogated again under hypnosis. But the truth is even more cruel than Linna suspects.

After twenty years of successfully directing such Hollywood films as Gilbert Grape, Chocolat, and God's Work and the Devil's Contribution, Lasse Hallström returned to his native Sweden for the film adaptation of the thriller The Hypnotist. His adaptation of the first of eight planned Joona Linna novels by Lars Kepler, the pseudonym of the writer couple Alexander Ahndoril and Alexandra Coelho Ahndoril, hits the nerve of the times. Because thriller fare from Scandinavia is particularly popular in Germany, both in book and film form. Whether Wallander, Kommissarin Lund, Kommissar Beck, the investigators of Arne Dahl's A-Group and, of course, the Millennium Trilogy by Stieg Larsson, gritty crime thrillers of this kind always find an audience of millions.

And therein lies precisely the problem of The Hypnotist. There are simply too many comparable works to measure this thriller against. No question about it, Lasse Hallström again shows that he knows his craft. The film looks really good and has a dark, engaging atmosphere that builds up a decent level of tension, although the big twist in the story itself is very predictable very quickly. Still, the film never gets beyond good mediocrity and you end up wondering if the thriller only made it to theaters at all because of its celebrity director. Because in direct comparison, many a Scandinavian TV production is vastly superior to it, at least dramaturgically.

The story, the conflicts between the characters and the rather disappointing finale are just too ordinary to be truly captivating. In addition, the production seems a bit indecisive at moments regarding who is actually at the center of the story. For the fact that Inspector Joona Linna is supposed to be introduced as the main character for a whole series of potential follow-up films, the character simply remains too pale and his repeatedly hinted story too superficial to really whet the appetite for more. And even the titular hypnotist, in itself a genuinely intriguing character, is too shallowly drawn to carry the film. His marriage in ruins, his professional reputation, all of it is too clichéd. Even a great mime like Mikael Persbrandt can't establish much more character depth there.

The Hypnotist, despite its flaws and minor lengths, is quite exciting and worth watching. If you have a soft spot for Nordic thrillers, you will definitely be well entertained here. More than decent average shouldn't be expected, though. For his next case, however, Linna should apprentice again with his colleagues Lund and Wallander to be able to build a similarly large fan base!

An article by Frankfurt-Tipp