The movie only gets into some real “action” when the unexpected death of Aksel occurs; he leaves the whole family in a real chaos, but most importantly a company with 900 employees is left without a leader. Christopher, one of the two siblings, decides to move back home in Denmark and take full control of the situation, yet against the hope and expectations of Ulrik, husband of Christopher’s sister Benedikte. On the other hand Aksel’s wife is the one pushing for Christopher to take over; she firmly believes he is the only one capable and with the necessary skills for such a big call.
Mari, Christopher’ wife, is certainly not supportive and does not play a role of cohesion and glue between the family and the business, yet she believes this decision will ruin hers and Christopher’s life. Later during the movie she is even caught cheating on his husband and that contributes to Christopher’s difficulties and embarrassment.
No succession planning is in place and that is one of the main reasons why the company, and the family, is caught in a very delicate and difficult situation; no formal family meeting or council are in place either, except for some random Sunday dinner’s reunion where talking about business seemed to be completely absent.
From the very beginning of the movie it is clear how the business is not in a good condition, the company is very close to failure and owners and top management are hoping to merge with one of the major steel manufacture from France; this is the only salvation plan that will bring some radical changes into the company.
Nils, a non-family member manager plays a very important role, and appears to be the right hand of Aksel first and later of Christopher; however at the end of the movie, once the merge is completed, Nils is sadly forced to leave the company he has loyally served for over 35 years. I see that as a big mistake Christopher has made, as well as a big lack of integrity: I would at least tried much harder to keep him in the new company, considering the effort and dedication Nils had invested for almost all his life. On the other hand Christopher does hire back Ulrik, previously fired because of some bad rumors he had spread, only to please and make his sister Benedikte happy, and yet to better reunite the whole family that is completely tired apart.
The movie ends leaving an image of the business apparently in good condition; the family is somehow reunited yet Christopher seems very sad, unhappy and badly impacted by his broken marriage, due mostly because of his family business.
I agree Renato, Maria was not the strongest of structures to support her husbands decisions, but can you blame her? Even after she made sacrifices and tried to see from his view point, he still let his work divide the relationship. I understand he wanted to keep the two lives separate but when work impacts life (i.e. involved with family, big moves etc). it should be openly discussed, shared and solved. He should have been open with his wife from the beginning so she in return could be open with him. But, like you said there was an overall lack of cohesion in the family. Besides the “Sunday dinners” no body really seemed to share their overall feelings (i.e. not choosing Ulrik/later firing him). A truly united family would not spring those kind of decisions on each other.
Renato I agree with you 100% about Nills playing an important role in the business and it boggled my mind to see him let go after the merger. This was definitely Christophers one of many terrible decisions since Nills was around the company for so long and had a lot more knowledge than Christopher did. I thought he should have found Nills another role in the business, something suitable for both the new company coming in and Christopher. There should have definitely been a family meeting to discuss this move, among others. However a lack of family unity and cohesiveness has led this family into making terrible decisions which put them into debt in the first place.