Teddy Bear
2012 Directed by Mads Matthiesen
Synopsis
The 38-year-old bodybuilder Dennis would really like to find true love. He has never had a girlfriend and lives alone with his mother in a suburb of Copenhagen. When his uncle marries a girl from Thailand, Dennis decides to try his own luck on a trip to Pattaya, as it seems that love is easier to find in Thailand. He knows that his mother would never accept another woman in his life, so he lies and tells her that he is going to Germany. Dennis has never been out traveling before and the hectic Pattaya is a huge cultural shock for him. The intrusive Thai girls give big bruises to Dennis' naive picture of what love should be like, and he is about to lose hope when he unexpectedly meets the Thai woman Toi.
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Film Number 2 on PinHeadLarry145's 30 Days 30 Countries Film Challenge!
Denmark, 2012.
I find it amazing how some of the smallest films can make me feel the biggest emotions. Teddy Bear is a movie about grand size and even grander feelings. This little film from Denmark hit me very hard and in from many unexpected directions. When I set out to do this challenge I wanted to pick big films that I would finally have an excuse to watch and smaller movies that I normally wouldn't find myself seeing. Teddy Bear was one of the smaller ones that I wasn't sure of. But as soon as it started I somehow could not stop watching in curious anticipation and morbid…
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As lame as it is to say, and it is very lame, Teddy Bear is The Wrestler meets Lost In Translation. Basically that means that it is absolutely superb. With a leading performance that is so painfully real it is almost hard to watch, Teddy Bear grabs hold of your heartstrings in the very first scene and then plays a concerto on them for the next hour and a half. I loved everything about this film and I hope that it gets some serious, serious love once it hits North America.
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A very awkward film but a good character study about a bodybuilder with mommy issues looking for love. Very genuine but didn't really do all that much for me.
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Review from my VOD column "This Week on Demand".
Adapting his 2007 short Dennis to ironically-titled feature length, Danish director Mads Matthiesen expands his exploration of that earlier film’s eponymous character with Teddy Bear. A gigantic body builder whose staggering physique belies a gentle soul within, we meet him in the midst of a painfully awkward date, his latest of many efforts to find female companionship outside the influence of his mother, with whom he still lives. Its light-hearted treatise on the meaning of masculinity renders the film almost a comic alternative to Bullhead, the pair both tackling the subject through these brutishly big protagonists, albeit with wildly differing tones. That’s not to misrepresent Teddy Bear’s dramatic sensibilities, however, its…
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"Some day love will find you; break those chains that bind you" - "Separate Ways," Journey.
I hope and wish on the brightest star I see tonight that Mads Matthiesen's Teddy Bear finds an audience not only in its home-country of Denmark, but in America, which is so accustomed to its spontaneous, mostly empty cinema that it's ridiculously easy and sickeningly common for small, human-driven pictures like this to go far below the radar. This is a stunning, poignant, masterful work involving immensely undiscovered talent, sensitive writing, smooth directing, and a storyline that is pure and viably sustainable when taken in the format presented.
Dennis is a thirty-eight year old bodybuilder, living with his controlling, domineering mother (Elsebeth Steentoft) who…
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Great! Really touching film.
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Marvelously expressive right from the opening scene, in which it's clear that we're seeing a first date even before either character says a word. The film as a whole offers few overt explanations, and none are needed. It's a quiet character study that never goes for theatrics even though it easily could, given the characters and relationships it deals with. It's also surprisingly charming, even if it ultimately doesn't amount to much. A pleasant gratification.
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The gentle story of a Danish body builder who, after advice from a relative, goes to Thailand to meet a girl.
Wonderful little film with a stoic a stoic performance from Kim Kold as Dennis. Simply presents the situation Dennis is in, and the actions he takes to change.
Lovely :)
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Film Number 2 on PinHeadLarry145's 30 Days 30 Countries Film Challenge!
Denmark, 2012.
I find it amazing how some of the smallest films can make me feel the biggest emotions. Teddy Bear is a movie about grand size and even grander feelings. This little film from Denmark hit me very hard and in from many unexpected directions. When I set out to do this challenge I wanted to pick big films that I would finally have an excuse to watch and smaller movies that I normally wouldn't find myself seeing. Teddy Bear was one of the smaller ones that I wasn't sure of. But as soon as it started I somehow could not stop watching in curious anticipation and morbid…
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I like slow, quiet films...
...but even this was a stretch for me.
I adored the lead, but the film didn't pan out in a manner that felt right to me. Poignant, heartfelt, and sincere issues that are presented in a soft manner. But in the end, much of it just kept me waiting.
***Adorable cuddle scene with a body-builder***
Worth a watch, regardless of my own personal rating.
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A profound, beautiful and delicate film about what it means to love and be loved.
Danish Kim Kold is a monster; a psychical presence of sheer muscle and determinaton, but under his shredded facade lies a timid, emotionally wounded man.
Teddy Bear is as touching as it is sincere and it's an independent effort from Denmark that is quite remarkable.
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I have a soft spot for muscular men who have trained their entire lives to become huge but have sacrificed many normal experiences to get there. Teddy Bear is the epitome of this. A well done character study of a loveable giant momma's boy. The casting is perfect and it would not have been the same movie without Kim Kold. The film does suffer from a somewhat rushed climax and ending but Dennis' journey is worth watching.
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Emotional brutal.
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"Teddy Bear" is a gentle, unlikely love story featuring a superb performance by Danish bodybuilder Kim Kold.
Struggling to find a suitable woman in his native Denmark, Dennis (Kold) travels to Thailand, a country where he is told by a family member it will be much easier to meet women. At first Dennis has great difficulty in his search, mostly because he is a timid, gentle man and the forwardness of Thai culture as it relates to sex does not agree with him. It is not until he returns to his domain, a gym in Thailand, that he eases up and is more comfortable and confident in his search, suggesting that it is not beneficial to an individual to stray…
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(NET)
Unexpectedly tender, though almost to a fault, TEDDY BEAR is a story of a 38-year-old Danish bodybuilder (Kim Kold) who lives with his slightly overbearing mother. He decides that since he's having a tough time with the ladies, he'll go to Thailand on the advice of his cousin and see if he can find true love.
Both the character and the film quietly suffer from too much timidity, but there is a persistent charm that ties it all together. While I didn't know what I was in for, I found TEDDY BEAR to be a very winning feature debut by director Mads Matthiesen. Worth watching.