Cęcilie (Sonja Richter, making her feature debut) and Joachim (Nikolaj Lie Kaas) are in love; the film opens with his proposal to her, but begins when he's hit by a car and paralyzed from the neck down. Niels (Mads Mikkelson) is the husband of the driver of the fateful car, Marie (Paprika Steen), and father to petulant teen Stine (Stine Bjerregaard). Marie asks Niels to comfort Cęcilie; Niels and Cęcilie begin an affair.

Simple and familiar, Open Hearts leaves a mark by understanding that the simplicity of a story only scratches the surface of the panoply of complex human emotions feeding it. The picture resembles and surpasses Bergman's sour, misogynistic Scenes from a Marriage and even David Hugh Jones and Harold Pinter's Betrayal in that it's neither studied nor mannered. The intimacy of Dogme's handheld style precludes much theatricality by itself, but the performances are to a one so transparent that it beggars the imagination. Best, Bier switches stock during a handful of fantasy scenes that honour the strictures of Dogme by actually looking worse (grain and camera whine, intact)--a device that packs an emotional wallop for the devastating simplicity of these flights of fancy. They are either the dream of the quadriplegic of waving a hand or the hope of the girlfriend of one last meaningful touch, and for as maudlin as it sounds, it works in ways surprising and overwhelming.

Open Hearts is heartbreaking and true. It avoids manipulation and formula with the grace of an ensemble completely inhabiting their roles, providing a journey as moving as it is revealing. Packed with quiet, wise revelations, the most stunning truth of the piece may be that for as technologically advanced and structurally clever our entertainments have become, the mysterious machinations of the human heart remain the most compelling entertainment and, ultimately, the most rewarding.-Walter Chaw