The Girl With the Needle

It is a rare thing for a film to craft such a dark, twisted statement and yet conclude on a note so brimming with love and optimism. That is the ultimate strength of The Girl With the Needle.

Transportive in every sense, the film moves with a haunting fluidity, capturing a Denmark on the cusp of industrialization—where remnants of untouched beauty still linger, yet the brutal reality of early industrial slums makes clear the hardships of a world in transition. Progress and suffering walk hand in hand, and the film does not shy away from depicting the stark inequities that emerge in this pre-modern landscape. The World War I setting is rendered with a striking visual language—warped shadows, anguished faces, flickering glimpses of joy and despair. The camera does not intrude, does not insist; instead, it lingers just long enough to let the imagery seep into the bones. At a taut two hours, the film wastes nothing, moving with an urgency that mirrors the desperation of its subjects.

That desperation is what lingers most. Whether a war-scarred veteran or a struggling worker barely keeping afloat, the film understands how easily one can slip—how quickly the distance from eviction to destitution, from despair to addiction, can shrink. The way it unfolds is seamless, almost terrifyingly so. The drama is presented plainly, yet it remains profoundly warped, as if viewed through a cracked lens—faces emerging from the shadows, illuminated just enough to reveal what must be seen, concealing what is not necessary. The effect is deeply evocative, borrowing the best of silent film cinematography without ever feeling like an affectation. Instead, it feels timeless—simultaneously modern and tethered to a lost era. A perfect approach for a historical drama of this scale.

There was a moment in the third act where I feared the film had lost me—that its bleak stakes had tipped over into senselessness. And yet, somehow, it finds a way through the darkness, emerging into something tender, something lovingly human. Perhaps that is the point. That no matter how dire our circumstances, no matter how cruel the world becomes, there is always the possibility of grace, of goodness.

It is a message worth holding onto. The world of The Girl With the Needle is not so far removed from our own.