Victoria Must Go

Hedvig and Henrik have a problem: Victoria, their father’s new wife. Scrupulously fixated on flawless, Insta-worthy appearances, she makes their lives living hell with her annoying rules and always gets their conflict-avoidant father to take her side. A comic book provides the brilliant idea of how to restore the familiar family harmony. Victoria has to die, and a hired killer should do it. There is no shortage of money, and Hedvig and Henrik hire Carl to murder their stepmother – after all, he is tall and strong and comes from the Balkans. Carl doesn't want to kill anyone, but that is beside the point to the siblings, and so the grotesque scheme snowballs amidst a pastel-coloured, white-bread suburban setting. Director Gunnbjörg Gunnarsdóttir is snarky and shameless in vivisecting a family dynamic fuelled by excessive entitlement and emotional insecurities, which drives those involved to atrocities – with ice-cold single-mindedness. This strident, black comedy brings to light the fissures inherent in a well-to-do family. And maybe even in ourselves.