A Worthy Man
2018 · 19m · Denmark
Directed by Kristian Håskjold
Genres: dark comedy, drama
Tones: contemplative, darkly comic, melancholic
Erik, a middle-aged baker working nights alone, slides into depression and fixates on being crowned 'Joker of the Week' by his local late-night radio show.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
A depressed baker orbiting a late-night radio show's validation—it's aggressively mundane until it isn't, which is exactly the kind of premise that makes you squirm because you recognize it as quietly radical.
Håskjold's restraint in framing Erik's spiraling against the quotidian rhythm of night-shift work carries echoes of Northern European social realism, though the dark comedy undercuts sentimentality with formal precision.
The film's anchor is the decision to keep the radio show itself almost entirely off-screen—letting Erik's obsession breathe through his face and the ambient sound of the bakery—which transforms a slim premise into something emotionally devastating on nothing.
Reviews
A Worthy Man tries (and succeeds in) delicately balancing humor with profound loneliness. The film is an endearing portrait of a man isolated from his family and searching for self-worth in a radio call-show.