The Girl with the Needle

The Girl with the Needle (Pigen med nålen) is a 2024 crime drama film directed by Magnus von Horn, from a screenplay written by von Horn and Line Langebek. It is very loosely based on the true story of Danish serial killer Dagmar Overbye, who helped impoverished women kill their unwanted children and was first sentenced to death in 1921, but it was later changed into a lifetime in prison.

The film was selected to compete for the Palme d'Or at the 77th Cannes Film Festival, where it premiered on 15 May 2024.

Plot
In Copenhagen, young pregnant Karoline takes on a position as a wet nurse for an older woman named Dagmar to help support herself. Dagmar operates a clandestine adoption agency under the guise of a candy shop, assisting disadvantaged mothers place their unwanted newborns in foster homes. Karoline grows close to Dagmar, but she is soon faced with the nightmarish reality she unwittingly entered.

Cast

 * Vic Carmen Sonne as Karoline
 * Trine Dyrholm as Dagmar
 * Besir Zeciri as Peter
 * Joachim Fjelstrup as Jørgen
 * Tessa Hoder as Frida
 * Avo Knox Martin as Erena
 * Anders Hove as the Judge
 * Ari Alexander

Production
The Girl with the Needle is Magnus von Horn's third feature, after The Here After (2015) and Sweat (2020). He described it as a "fairy tale for grownups" and was motivated "not to just make a straight genre piece [but] to flirt with genre. That became a great lens to look at the story, for me and the cinematographer and the set designers and the costumes." The film was produced by Malene Blenkov for Nordisk Film Denmark and Mariusz Wlodarski for Lava Films (Poland), in co-production with Nordisk Film Sweden.

Release


The Girl with the Needle was selected to compete for the Palme d'Or at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival, where it had its world premiere on 15 May 2024.

International sales are handled by The Match Factory, whose parent Mubi acquired distribution rights to the film for North and Latin America, United Kingdom, Ireland, Germany, Austria, Italy, Turkey and India a few days after its premiere.

Critical response
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 87% based on 23 reviews, with an average rating of 7/10. On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 81 out of 100, based on 9 critic reviews indicating "universal acclaim".

The reviews from Cannes described the film as "grippingly acted"; a "sombre, commercially uncompromising work"; and a "poetic and dark fairy tale."