There exist moments in the majority of films, moments where anything from a pleasant exchange between characters, a well-placed joke, or an unassuming smile can create levity often when it’s needed most. The near-absence of such moments in director/co-writer Magnus von Horn’s latest effort, “The Girl with the Needle,” sits on full display throughout, making the scant few instances all the more jarring the instant they show up to such a bleak affair. And yet, despite such a trait so impossible to ignore, can the film it contains still carry power? In this particular example, it would appear so.
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Inspired by true events and shot in black and white but still possessing a clean, digital polish as the film twists through the expressionist cavernous alleyways of post-WWI Copenhagen, the film centers around Karoline (Vic Carmen Sonne), an impoverished woman doing what she can to simply exist in the wake of her husband Peter’s (Besir Zeciri) presumed demise on the battlefield, even as her lack of his death certificate renders her unable to receive widow benefits. Though working as a seamstress provides her with a meager income, it isn’t enough to save her from eviction. Still, a glimmer of hope materializes when the owner of her workshop, Jørgen (Joachim Fjelstrup), takes a liking to the forlorn Karoline. This event leads to both a marriage proposal and an unexpected pregnancy. Could this represent some new beginning?
Unsurprisingly, the sudden appearance of a disfigured, traumatized Peter, fresh from the frontlines of war and encumbered with a payload of emotional baggage, throws a wrench in her plans. However, her understandably forlorn husband seems keen to resume whatever semblance of a relationship may exist between the two; Karoline’s plans lie with Jørgen. This, too, proves to be short-lived, as Jørgen’s hostile mother (Benedikte Hansen) demands the engagement end immediately and, just as quickly as it began, Karoline finds herself once again alone; in an act that sees the abandoned woman at the end of her rope, the title of the film comes into play when the named object is nearly used as a means to terminate her pregnancy. 
Enter Dagmar (Trine Dyrholm), a local candy store owner, quick to intervene to prevent Karoline from carrying out her task and one who not only has an apparent child of her own, Erena (Avo Knox Martin), but also works in a capacity as something of an adoption agent, helping destitute families secure a promising future for their infants by arranging secretive placements with the promise of well-off couples. In the wake of Dagmar assisting Karoline with the placement of the daughter she bore with Jørgen, even as Peter offers to raise the child as his own, Karoline insists she join Dagmar in her efforts, acting as a wet nurse and eventually meeting with mothers facing the difficult decision to part with their newborns. 
It isn’t long before Karoline begins questioning the legitimacy of Dagmar’s work. While no one shocking moment serves to reveal the truth eventually, all it takes are several horrific scenes, building upon one another in a manner that might have intended to cushion the impact but nevertheless propels the audience to slam headfirst into the film’s final act. 
The haunting atmosphere of “The Girl with the Needle” lies in equal measure with the acting masterclass that serves as the film’s primary source of fuel, with Sonne’s Karoline a naïve, spectral figure as she endures treatment at the hands of a male-dominated society, directly contributing to that pivotal moment that sets the film’s events in motion. The faces of distorted characters appear periodically in a series of montages that can’t help but provoke a squirm, with Karoline’s emerging from the fray with a twisted onscreen visage symbolizing her plight as on the nose amongst the scenes that compromise such a film that’s ultimately straightforward in its storytelling technique. 
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There’s no symbolism, no metaphors, just the truth, and it’s Dyrholm’s Dagmar who cuts right to the point as she cooly consoles Karoline following those third-act revelations that, in two scenes particularly, remove any form of implication in the most jaw-dropping fashion imaginable. 
Though Dyrholm’s final scene shows Dagmar boldly standing her ground, culminating the entirety of her journey as a whole, it fails to soften the preceding blow as Dagmar’s facade disappears. Even Zeciri paints a sympathetic picture, doing as much as possible in his handful of scenes, with his most pivotal showing his unexpected transition into sideshow freak, a performance Karoline unexpectedly attends and which allows her an opportunity to see the full extent of her husband’s injury for the first time. His desire to be with Karoline never comes into question, as much as his respect for her wishes when she demands he leave following her decision to be with Jørgen or the choice she made to give up her daughter.

“It was a very different time.” A quote mostly unattributed but used often, it’s a phrase easily applied to the events of “The Girl with the Needle,” as an era plays out onscreen with one woman’s journey guiding us through what ultimately lands as a difficult watch. A glimmer of hope does close the film, and in contrast to van Horn’s underseen 2020 satire “Sweat,” his current effort somehow feels far more timely as much as it is necessary. It’s impossible not to recommend. [B+]
“The Girl With The Needle” opens theaters in the US & Canada on December 6, Germany & Latin America on January 9, and the UK on January 10 via MUBI.