Boys and their toys

It's not a Dogme movie, but there are times when one wishes it was, considering the brilliance of Vinterberg's Festen and von Trier's Breaking the Waves.

Made almost entirely on a large set near Copenhagen, it is about a poverty-stricken American coal-mining town where a group of alienated youths buy handguns, form the Dandy Club and virtually worship their weapons. This, we are asked to believe, is all they have. Being somewhat unlikely pacifists, they use them only for target practice in an underground stronghold.

But tragedy ensues when the less pacifist adult world above them, chiefly impersonated by Bill Pullman's cartoon-like sheriff, decides that they present some sort of threat.

The leader of the Dandy Club is played by Jamie Bell, who adopts a good American accent and provides the film with its better moments.

Wendy, by the way, is his gun and one hopes, throughout the film, that he will find a girl to replace it in his affections. Alas, he doesn't.

The main trouble here is that the staginess of von Trier's conception, mirroring Dogville, and the realism Vinterberg tries to inject into it are constantly at odds.

The result is that Dear Wendy seems both lacking in credibility and, until its shoot-out ending, rather dull. What's worse, the obvious message is drummed home so remorselessly that it looks as if Vinterberg thinks we are all totally naive.

Dear Wendy
Cert: cert15