The Hypnotist

★★★

(2012)

Lasse Hallstrøm’s U-turn in tone after last year’s Salmon Fishing in the Yemen is a seemingly stereotypical pulp mystery churned out with talent and a fantastic performance by Lena Olin. Though the story could have been culled from a handful of recently in vogue Swedish thrillers it’s sole source is Alexandra Coelho Ahndoril’s best seller in which a police officer attempts to use a hypnotist to solve a series of bloody murders. The clichés of an over used story in the detective genre are mostly present but with some classy pacing and a seriously tense finale The Hypnotist almost succeeds.

Joona Linna (Tobias Zilliacus) is the lonely cop called in to solve a multiple murder with one barely alive survivor; A young boy called Josef (Jonatan Bokman). Linna calls in criminal hypnotist and psychologist Erik (Mikael Persbrandt) who has a few problems of his own including a disintegrating marriage with his wife Simone (Olin) and serious sleeping pill woes. When the killer swipes their own child from their house in the middle of the night Erik’s trepidation towards the case vanishes and the furious hunt begins.

Chilly and dark, Hallstrom’s film certainly plods in places. An unbalanced screen time between Persbrandt and Zilliacus doesn’t particularly do anything for The Hypnotist as an exercise in working differently together but there are some great aspects on show here. Olin and Persbrandt are brilliant as the couple under serious pressure, using the dinner table or decorating the christmas tree as an arena for sideswiping, hurtful comments before their jealous world is turned inexplicably upside down. Director Hallstrom, not known for thrillers does very well separating the murders and the family problems, using the horror as a way to cause a very different kind of tension between the leads, especially in the film’s introduction.

However, in never going for long action scenes or psychical chases the film as a whole seems very subdued as a genre thriller. But that’s not to say there are no original and tense moments within an unoriginal film. It plays like an ice cold blue and white toned family drama for the most part but therein lie’s the eventual strength of The Hypnotist’s secret. Though that mystery might not be as well concealed or wire tight as Hallstrom may have liked, a few obligatory twists and turns towards the film’s end lift it gallantly as it charges towards a technically excellent final set piece.