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"The Promised Land" is about ten movies in one. It's a history lesson with a central figure driven by an impossible quest. There are bands of outlaws, sadistic aristocrats, and downtrodden peasants. There's a little romance, a lot of torture, as well as a feisty runaway child. Historical epics like this really aren't made anymore. There are so many different chapters of the central conflict it makes the final confrontation inevitable and therefore a little predictable. However, there's still unexpected space, and the film takes its time, allowing for character development and emotional connection. It's a wonder that "The Promised Land" works as well as it does. Directed by Nikolaj Arcel , the film takes place in 18th century Denmark, when agricultural reforms cracked the rigid social hierarchies, where the rich lived in luxury and the "little people" were practically in a state of serfdom. Mads Mikkelsen , in his second collaboration with Arcel, plays Ludvig Kahlen, a man who hauled himself out of obscurity to become a Lieutenant in the Army. At the film's opening, he is destitute, living in a poor house, and dreaming of developing a piece of land on the Jutland "heath", a land deemed untameable. The Danish King is determined to settle the area. The royal court doesn't want this and neither do the landowners, but the King grants Ludwig permission to settle a patch of land, promising him a noble title if he succeeds. Ludvig wants that title. The heath soil is so tough Ludvig can barely dig a hole. A young pastor (Anton Eklund), supportive of the project, offers Ludvig help in the form of two runaway tenant farmers, husband Joannes ( Morten Hee Andersen ) and wife Ann Barbara ( Amanda Collin ). Ludvig takes them on with hesitation. People will be looking for them. It's an uneasy situation. Meanwhile, the nearest nobleman, Frederik de Schinkel ( Simon Bennebjerg ), wants to run Ludvig off the land. Frederik, at first glance, seems silly and frivolous, but he is eventually revealed as a sadistic monster. He doesn't even try to "play" Ludvig. It's open warfare from the start. Ludvig also contends with roving bands of outlaws in the nearby forest. To top it off, a runaway child ( Melina Hagberg ) shows up on Ludvig's doorstep and basically refuses to leave. All of this is a highly fictionalized account of real events. Ludvig Kahlen was a real person, and the heath settlement with all its complications was a real event. Ida Jessen's best-selling novel The Captain and Ann Barbara is the basis for the film adaptation, co-written by Anders Thomas Jensen and Arcel. There has clearly been a lot of fictionalization. It feels like this material could have been a bodice-ripping melodrama in less intuitive hands. But "The Promised Land" has control of its narrative. What's most surprising is just how much character development is accomplished. Mikkelsen's performance is a marvel, really. Haughty at first to Johannes and Ann Barbara, and downright mean to the child, Mikkelsen suggests depths which Ludvig attempts to conceal. What is this man's pain? What is he looking for? Or running from? At times, tiny flickers of human emotion appear at the corners of his eyes, or his mouth, softening him. These moments carry more weight because Ludvig is normally so inexpressive. Amanda Collin is very strong as Ann Barbara, whose character development may be the most radical in the whole film. Rasmus Videbæk's cinematography captures the landscape in all its moods, lingering on the impenetrable fogs, the nights of howling wind, the glaring sun, the dark fairy tale forest filled with dangers. The interior of De Schinkel's estate is lit by hundreds of candles at night, the effect reminiscent of Kubrick's gorgeous " Barry Lyndon ". The costumes ( Kicki Ilander ) and production design ( Jette Lehmann ) are unobtrusive and feel extremely lived-in. The conflict in "The Promised Land" is intense and Frederik is so despicable he borders on a cartoon villain. There's a sameness in the escalating fight that gets repetitive after a while. What really holds interest in the film is Ludvig's character development, and the characters of the makeshift family around him. I cared about these people. They seemed real. "The Promised Land" is so successful at what it attempts to do I felt exhilarated when the first fragile seedling popped up above the earth. It's a reminder that a film needs to get the big things right—events and conflicts and obstacles—but it needs to get the small things right too. If a film gets the small things right, then a potato sprouting in the dirt will read like the miracle it is.

Sheila O'Malley

Sheila O'Malley received a BFA in Theatre from the University of Rhode Island and a Master's in Acting from the Actors Studio MFA Program. Read her answers to our Movie Love Questionnaire here .

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Film credits.

The Promised Land (2024)

127 minutes

Mads Mikkelsen as Ludvig Kahlen

Amanda Collin as Ann Barbara

Simon Bennebjerg as Frederik de Schinkel

Kristine Kujath Thorp as Edel Helene

Gustav Lindh as Anton

Jacob Ulrik Lohmann as Trappaud

Morten Hee Andersen as Johannes Eriksen

Magnus Krepper as Hector

Søren Malling as Paulli

Morten Buus as Settler

• Nikolaj Arcel
• Anders Thomas Jensen

Director of Photography

• Rasmus Videbæk

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Movie Reviews

'promised land': a folksy take on fracking.

Jeannette Catsoulis

Salesman Steve Butler (Matt Damon) faces a challenge from environmentalist Dustin Noble (John Krasinski) while trying to buy drilling rights in a small town. Scott Green/Focus Features hide caption

Salesman Steve Butler (Matt Damon) faces a challenge from environmentalist Dustin Noble (John Krasinski) while trying to buy drilling rights in a small town.

Promised Land

• Director: Gus Van Sant
• Genre: Drama
• Running time: 106 minutes

Rated R for language

With: Matt Damon, Frances McDormand, John Krasinski

(Recommended)

Watch Clips

'What You Do'

Credit: Focus Features

'Simple Math'

Credit: 'Simple Math'

'It's My Birthday'

Promised Land , Gus Van Sant's gentle but knowing natural gas drama, is concerned with the tension between long-term environmental costs and short-term financial gain. Set in small-town Pennsylvania and based on a story by Dave Eggers, the screenplay by co-stars Matt Damon and John Krasinski aims for a moral complexity that pays as much attention to economic reality as social responsibility. Though the film eventually caves to sentiment and stereotype, its alert performances and muted rhythms offer much to enjoy in the interim.

As the advance guard of a major energy conglomerate, newly promoted Steve (Damon) and his astringent partner Sue (Frances McDormand) persuade beleaguered farmers to sell drilling rights to land held by their families for generations. A one-time Iowa farm boy, Steve knows that a flannel work shirt and fake folksy charm can soften the most doubtful mark; he also knows that too much information about the company's gas extraction methods — otherwise known as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking — can derail his sales pitch.

But Steve, as he keeps telling the locals, isn't a bad guy. He may dispense as many bribes as homilies, but he's a true believer who sees himself more as savior than salesman. To him, natural gas offers salvation from a disappearing way of life and hard cash for landowners who can barely feed their families. And since farms are doomed, those who cling to their agricultural heritage are practicing "delusional self-mythology," an argument that many familiar with the economics of today's farming may see as not entirely far-fetched.

Damon and Krasinski also wrote the screenplay for the film. Focus Features hide caption

Damon and Krasinski also wrote the screenplay for the film.

Gliding on Danny Elfman 's ethereal score and cinematographer Linus Sandgren's bucolic vistas, Promised Land (unlike Josh Fox's searing 2010 documentary Gasland ) isn't a howl of anger against corporate callousness. Channeling its environmental concerns through the character of a quietly eloquent retired scientist (Hal Holbrook), the film maintains a homey, humorous tone that only occasionally crackles with anger or disappointment. Most of the pleasure derives from Damon and McDormand's prickly but pragmatic partnership and, later, Krasinski's breezy cockiness as Dustin Noble, an environmental activist who woos the locals with sob stories and karaoke. Watching Dustin murder Springsteen's "Dancing in the Dark" in front of a bar full of applauding farmers, Steve visibly deflates.

And this, if anything, is the film's Achilles' heel. Damon may not be entirely comfortable playing the corporate villain (however ambivalent), and he makes Steve surprisingly pouty and easily overwhelmed. Luckily he's surrounded by excellent supporting players, including Rosemarie DeWitt as a local schoolteacher and man magnet, and Titus Welliver as a brooding shopkeeper with modest designs on Sue. By the time we realize we're watching a standard transformation story that's a little cliched and a lot self-serving, Van Sant's steady hand and unobtrusive style have almost convinced us otherwise. (Recommended)

Promised Land Review

19 Apr 2013

106 minutes

Promised Land

Try as it might, Promised Land, produced, co-written and starring both Matt Damon and John Krasinski, with Gus Van Sant serenely at the helm, can’t help sinking into rural kitsch. There’s an inevitability to its outcomes, a movie gravity towards noble cliché. All of it building to that moment when, basking in his hard-won epiphany, our anti-hero tells us the goddamn truth of things. It’s a great moment, subtly done as these things go, but it spoils a better movie.

For its first half, if not more, the story walks an intriguing ethical line between two wrongs: the pillage of the land by energy companies and the pillage of the people by recession. But in daring uneven moral ground — surely the point — the film loses its courage and takes the (Doc) Hollywood road. Oh, the irresistible lure of those country bumpkins.

Damon’s Butler, armoured in a smile, knows his terrain: he still wears his grandfather’s working boots, signalling he grew up in just such a farming community as this Pennsylvania backwater. He’s got a store of old resentments to be tapped like natural gas. He knows what ruin is like, and that money offers a chance. For all their salesmanship, Global Crosspower Solutions’ Butler and his partner, Sue Thomason (Frances McDormand), are preaching a form of salvation to these destitute farmers. They halfway believe in their message (the film ponders how jobs shape our identity). Would you sacrifice the land, if it meant sending your kids to college? Righteousness is for those who can afford it. For a moment, our expectations are confounded — maybe they have a point. After all, you can’t help but root for Damon.

Standing in Global’s way are two opposing forces. Wizened elder Hal Holbrook, face like a rucksack, croons that the cost may be greater than the price, but his lamentations struggle to sound more than rote despair. Better is Krasinski, with a fine line in smug grins and bad shorts as environmentalist Dustin Noble. He would rather needle his pent-up foe, and Van Sant has them strutting about car parks like bantam roosters. If the metaphor is clumsy, the infectiously natural Rosemarie DeWitt, as the town’s ‘undecided’ singleton, offers real sweetness.

If all of this suggests Local Hero, it lacks the mysticism hovering over that film like a mist — a sense of something to be valued beyond human dilemmas. Here there is a strict determination to encompass the sullen temperature of American economics, with familiar scenes of forlorn land-folk elbow-deep in tractor parts, dejected families mystified by paperwork, and heated town gatherings in high-school gyms.

For a good distance, the film juggles both corn-pone daydream and misery porn. Between its muddy moral games, Van Sant keeps things airy and crisply comic. Obvious plot points take amusingly unforeseen turns. The script has a fine ear for the offhand banter of working people, the wry shorthand of bar talk. Gradually, Van Sant and his writers become more and more enamoured with their small-town realism and Butler’s overdue enlightenment, and what once was provocative succumbs to the endearing.

The best advice, in this and most of life, is to cling to the pleasure of Frances McDormand’s company. That graceful worldliness she grants all she does. For Thomason this is a job, a means to look after her own family. Necessity, she suggests, is a personal choice.

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The Promised Land review: an immersive historical epic

“Director Nikolaj Arcel's The Promised Land is a visually stunning, thoughtfully made drama.”

• Mads Mikkelsen's quietly captivating lead performance
• Rasmus Videbæk's visually rich cinematography
• Nikolaj Arcel's sturdy, unobtrusive direction
• An ending that doesn't hit with as much weight as it should
• Several underdeveloped supporting characters

The Promised Land is a brutal, unforgiving drama about the danger of ambition and the greed that seems to drive so many who are already in power. I found it oddly comforting. As strange as that may sound, the film is a rare beast in the world of contemporary moviemaking. It’s a modestly budgeted, well-constructed historical epic made with such clear care and craft that one feels permitted to sit back and let it take you wherever it wants. Once upon a time, period dramas like it used to be far more common than they are now. In 2024, they seem reserved for directors like Martin Scorsese ( Silence ) and Ridley Scott ( Napoleon ) — masters well-versed in bringing history’s lost worlds to life.

For that reason, The Promised Land feels like a bit of a miracle. The film, Danish writer-director Nikolaj Arcel’s follow-up to his underwhelming 2017 Stephen King adaptation , The Dark Tower , isn’t the most narratively sophisticated drama you’ll see this year. The story it tells is broad in both its scope and emotions, but the spell it casts is frequently mesmerizing. With one of the world’s greatest actors as its lead, The Promised Land also grounds itself in a taciturn and yet quietly, beautifully expressive performance.

Based on a book by Danish author Ida Jessen, the film stars Mads Mikkelsen as Captain Ludvig Kahlen, a poor officer of the German army who, in the wake of his retirement, seeks permission to try building a farm in the fields of Denmark’s expansive heath. If he succeeds, he’ll not only be the first man to do so but also be granted the kind of property and noble title he’s spent his entire life trying to earn. His limited funds make it difficult for him to recruit enough workers for the job, though, and he quickly finds himself in a rivalry with Frederik de Schinkel (Simon Bennebjerg), a nearby landowner who has no interest in cultivating the heath but is concerned with the impact that Kahlen’s efforts could have on his wealth.

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Their rivalry serves as the dramatic heart of The Promised Land , and the increasingly violent, petty nature of it inevitably calls to mind the feud between Daniel Day-Lewis’ merciless oil baron and Paul Dano’s egotistical preacher in Paul Thomas Anderson’s There Will Be Blood . Arcel’s film, which is based on a screenplay he co-wrote with Anders Thomas Jensen, never reaches the same thematic and barbaric heights as Anderson’s 2007 masterpiece, but de Schinkel and Kahlen’s battle over control of the Danish heath does prove to be fertile material for The Promised Land to explore its themes of class, greed, and reckless ambition.

Like There Will Be Blood , Arcel’s historical drama makes the most out of its barren environment, which seems to stretch on forever in every direction. The director and his cinematographer, Rasmus Videbæk, fill the film’s first act with shots of Mikkelsen digging alone into the surface of the heath’s inhospitable fields. The framing and depth of these images both emphasize the seeming futility of Kahlen’s efforts to bend nature to his will and invite you to get lost in The Promised Land ‘s untamed 18th-century landscapes. Meanwhile, the B arry Lyndon -esque use of natural light sources throughout de Schinkel’s ornate country manor just further adds to the film’s immersive qualities.

As he pushes ahead with his plans, Mikkelsen’s former army officer grows gradually closer to his few supporters: Ann Barbara (Amanda Collin), an escaped servant of de Schinkel who agrees to help Kahlen in exchange for safe harbor; Anton Eklund (Gustav Lindh), a well-meaning country priest; and Anmai Mus (Melina Hagberg), a mischievous little girl who comes to view Ludvig as a father figure. An unlikely family forms between the four misfits, but it’s a credit to Arcel and Jensen’s screenplay and Mikkelsen’s withdrawn performance that The Promised Land never veers into overly sentimental territory.

The film holds onto its harsh edge all the way through its runtime — delivering a third act that is admirable in its emotional and dramatic messiness. Behind the camera, Arcel resists the urge to spell out the movie’s climactic beats too explicitly. Instead, He chooses to linger repeatedly on Mikkelsen’s face — the actor’s impassive expressions make way for his eyes to subtly communicate his character’s increasing exhaustion and desperation. Although Arcel delivers a bloody conclusion to the constant threat of violence that permeates throughout The Promised Land , too, the filmmaker successfully finds the right balance between horrifying brutality and gruesome catharsis.

The movie ultimately continues on a few minutes longer than it needs to, and its ending doesn’t land with as much emotional weight as is intended, partly due to the underdeveloped nature of several of its supporting characters — namely, Collin’s Ann Barbara. Thankfully, The Promised Land never makes the mistake of overplaying any of its final moments. It goes out on a quiet note that reflects its protagonist’s overly mannered demeanor and elegantly rejects the unwavering resolve he holds onto for much of its story.

It’s a final wrinkle in a film that is about as straightforward and unshowy as they come and which is content to remain at an understated key for most of its story. Those who check out The Promised Land will, in other words, likely find themselves immersed fully in a historical epic that delivers everything it promises, as well as a little more.

The Promised Land is now playing in theaters.

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Unfortunately, the film’s attempts to blend screwball comedy with open-hearted romanticism often come across as hackneyed rather than inspired. Behind the camera, director Alex Lehmann fails to bring Meet Cute’s disparate emotional and comedic elements together, and the movie ultimately lacks the tonal control that it needs to be able to discuss serious topics like depression in the same sequence that it throws out, say, a series of slapstick costume gags.  The resulting film is one that isn't memorably absurd so much as it is mildly irritating.

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Set around 60 years before X, West’s new prequel does away with the por nstars, abandoned farms, and eerie old folks that made its predecessor’s horror influences clear and replaces them with poor farmers, charming film projectionists, and young women with big dreams. Despite those differences, Pearl still feels like a natural follow-up to X. The latter film, with its use of split screens and well-placed needle drops, offered a surprisingly dark rumination on the horror of old age. Pearl, meanwhile, explores the loss of innocence and, in specific, the often terrifying truths that remain after one’s dreams have been unceremoniously ripped away from them.

The Woman King opens purposefully and violently. The film’s first sequence, which brings to life a brutal battle from its sudden beginning all the way to its somber end, is a master class in visual storytelling. Not only does it allow director Gina Prince-Bythewood to, once again, prove her worth as a capable action filmmaker, but it also introduces The Woman King’s central all-female army, sets up the film’s core conflict, and introduces nearly every important character that you’ll need to know for the two hours that follow it. The fact that The Woman King does all of this within the span of a few short minutes just makes its opening sequence all the more impressive.

The level of impressive craftsmanship in The Woman King’s memorably violent prologue is present throughout the entirety of its 135-minute runtime. For that reason, the film often feels like a throwback to an era that seems to reside farther in the past than it actually does, one when it was common for all the major Hollywood studios to regularly put out historical epics that were, if nothing else, reliably well-made and dramatically engaging.

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Promised land, common sense media reviewers.

Low-key "issues" drama has some strong language, drinking.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

The movie's message isn't entirely easy to

Steve is highly imperfect, but he learns many less

A brief fight in a bar; the character sustains som

Two adults flirt and go on a date.

"F--k" is used many times. Other words i

A Pepsi machine is shown. A pack of Trident gum is

The main character has a night of strong drinking

Parents need to know that Promised Land is a drama about big companies and farming communities, big money, and environmental troubles that's rated R primarily for strong language (including several uses of "f--k"). It's told through two main characters: a well-meaning company man and a grass…

Positive Messages

The movie's message isn't entirely easy to nail down, but it will launch some good discussions. One theme is about the debate between farms staying true to their roots or giving in and accepting cash from a corporation. Another theme is about whether a person should remain loyal to the corporation for which he works -- or do the right thing.

Positive Role Models

Steve is highly imperfect, but he learns many lessons. He works for a huge company and believes he's doing the right thing, but eventually he learns that there may be other answers just as valid. Eventually he comes to a crossroads wherein he must decide between his job and telling the truth.

Violence & Scariness

A brief fight in a bar; the character sustains some minor wounds to the face.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

"F--k" is used many times. Other words include "suck it," "a--hole," "hell," "s--t," "hell," "a--hole," "damn," "oh my God," "goddamn," and more.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Products & Purchases

A Pepsi machine is shown. A pack of Trident gum is shown. The main character has a Hewlett-Packard (HP) computer.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

The main character has a night of strong drinking (beer and shots) and wakes up, hung over, in a comical way. He keeps returning to the bar for more drinks throughout the movie, but a drinking problem isn't implied.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that Promised Land is a drama about big companies and farming communities, big money, and environmental troubles that's rated R primarily for strong language (including several uses of "f--k"). It's told through two main characters: a well-meaning company man and a grass-roots activist, neither of whom are what they seem. It's a movie filled with issues and ideas, and it would make for good discussions with teens. In addition to the swearing, there's a scene with strong drinking (followed by a hangover), as well as one fight, some flirting, and a little product placement. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

Where to Watch

Videos and photos.

Community Reviews

• Parents say (1)
• Kids say (1)

Based on 1 parent review

Climbing the wall

What's the story.

Two representatives from a big natural gas corporation -- Steve Butler ( Matt Damon ) and Sue Thomason ( Frances McDormand ) -- arrive in a small farming community offering to buy the rights to extract natural gas from the earth. The farmers, savaged by the poor economy, are torn between taking the cash and risking the damage that the drilling (known as "fracking") could do. Matters are complicated when a grass-roots activist, Dustin Noble ( John Krasinski ), shows up to oppose them. At the same time, Steve finds himself developing feelings for a local schoolteacher ( Rosemarie DeWitt ). Will Steve figure out the right thing to do?

Is It Any Good?

A unique group of talents came together for this issue movie. Acclaimed author Dave Eggers wrote the original story, and actors Damon and Krasinski wrote the screenplay. Gus Van Sant directed, 15 years after directing another Damon screenplay, Good Will Hunting . The result is pleasantly low-key and never seems preachy or angry. But PROMISED LAND also raises more issues than it can reasonably tackle.

Specifically, it brings up the complex question of what farmers are supposed to do in such a terrible economy; should they risk damaging the environment in exchange for financial security? Yet Promised Land turns its focus to Steve's personal journey and resolves that, leaving the farmers on their own. Van Sant gives this one a more cursory touch than usual, recalling Good Will Hunting and Finding Forrester . But the well-rounded characters -- especially McDormand's -- make it enjoyable along the way.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about what the farmers should do. Should they take the money or look for a better solution? Is there a "right" answer to this problem?

What's the right thing for the main character, Steve Butler, to do? What does he learn over the course of Promised Land ? Is he a role model ?

How does the movie depict drinking ? Why do the characters drink? Are there realistic consequences?

Movie Details

• In theaters : December 28, 2012
• On DVD or streaming : April 23, 2013
• Cast : Frances McDormand , John Krasinski , Matt Damon , Rosemarie DeWitt
• Director : Gus Van Sant
• Inclusion Information : Gay directors, Female actors
• Studio : Focus Features
• Genre : Drama
• Run time : 106 minutes
• MPAA rating : R
• MPAA explanation : language
• Last updated : April 17, 2024

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

Suggest an Update

Our editors recommend.

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Common Sense Media's unbiased ratings are created by expert reviewers and aren't influenced by the product's creators or by any of our funders, affiliates, or partners.

• Cast & crew
• User reviews

The Promised Land

The story of Ludvig Kahlen who pursued his lifelong dream: To make the heath bring him wealth and honor. The story of Ludvig Kahlen who pursued his lifelong dream: To make the heath bring him wealth and honor. The story of Ludvig Kahlen who pursued his lifelong dream: To make the heath bring him wealth and honor.

• Nikolaj Arcel
• Anders Thomas Jensen
• Mads Mikkelsen
• Amanda Collin
• Simon Bennebjerg
• 63 User reviews
• 108 Critic reviews
• 77 Metascore
• 21 wins & 15 nominations

• Ludvig Kahlen

• Ann Barbara

• Frederik De Schinkel
• (as Hagberg Melina)

• Edel Helene

• Anton Eklund
• Johannes Eriksen

• Anmai Mus (15)
• (as Laura Bilgrau)
• Colonist Claus

• All cast & crew
• Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

More like this

Did you know

• Trivia Official submission of Denmark for the 'Best International Feature Film' category of the 96th Academy Awards in 2024.

Ludvig von Kahlen : It is much more afraid of you than you are for it.

• Connections Featured in Amanda the Jedi Show: I ALMOST Walked Out | The Best and Worst of TIFF 2023 (2023)

User reviews 63

• formenteralady
• Oct 19, 2023
• How long is The Promised Land? Powered by Alexa
• October 5, 2023 (Denmark)
• The Bastard
• Czech Republic
• Zentropa Entertainments
• Zentropa International Berlin
• Zentropa International Sweden
• See more company credits at IMDbPro
• $8,500,000 (estimated)
• Feb 4, 2024

Technical specs

• Runtime 2 hours 7 minutes
• D-Cinema 48kHz 7.1
• Dolby Digital

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‘The Promised Land’ Review: Coaxing Crops From a Wild Land

Mads Mikkelsen stars as a soldier with little money but big ideas who gets royal approval to try to conquer a vast shrubby expanse.

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By Manohla Dargis

The Danish drama “The Promised Land” takes its old-fashioned remit with enjoyable seriousness. Set in the mid-18th century, it is a classic tale of haves and have-nots filled with gristle and grit, limitless horizons, scenes of suffering, reversals of fortune and cathartic recognition. It has sweep, romance, violence and spectacle, but what makes it finally work as well as it does is that it largely avoids the ennobling clichés that turn characters into ideals and movies into exercises in spurious nostalgia — well, that and Mads Mikkelsen.

Mikkelsen stars as Capt. Ludvig Kahlen, a war veteran with little more than a frayed uniform and a well-polished medal on his chest, who sets out to cultivate the heath in Jutland, the peninsula that makes up most of Denmark. There, on a vast shrubby expanse thought untamable yet beloved by the Danish monarch, Kahlen hopes to work the land and establish a settlement for king, country and himself. Over time, as seasons change and visitors come and go, he does just that, building a new world and cultivating the ground in a laborious, engrossing process that the director Nikolaj Arcel charts with ease and gripping drama.

Written by Arcel and Anders Thomas Jensen, the well-paced story briskly takes Kahlen from the poorhouse to the royal palace minutes after opening, establishing the reach of his ambition. (The movie is based on the novel “The Captain and Ann Barbara” from the Danish writer Ida Jessen.) There, he seeks permission to build on the heath from the king’s advisers, a collection of imperial rotters in wigs and satin breeches who agree to his request only after he pledges to pay for the endeavor with his military pension. In return, Kahlen wants a title, a manor and servants; effectively, he wants to become one of them.

Mikkelsen is excellent, and inexorably watchable. He almost always is, whether he’s infusing life into a cardboard Hollywood villain (“Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny”) or having a palpably rollicking time playing a rampaging hero (as in the entertaining action romp “Riders of Justice,” written and directed by Jensen). Mikkelsen’s severe good looks are a crucial part of his appeal, as is the sense of menace and intrigue that certain beauty brings with it. Mikkelsen knows how to complicate his looks and he’s particularly adept at amplifying its menace by withholding readable emotion, a technique that turns his face into a mask you anxiously wait for him to drop.

Kahlen soon reaches Jutland alone on horseback, and the story begins to take flight, as does the camera. With boundless aerial views that establish a sense of place both geographic and emotional, Arcel at once conveys the land’s immensity (and harsh grandeur) and emphasizes the titanic effort of Kahlen’s enterprise (and its loneliness). In both sun and rain, he repeatedly bores into the ground with a hand-held auger to gauge the quality of the soil, feeling, smelling and all but tasting the dirt. With every twist of the auger, he steadily underscores his will. By the time he finds what he needs it’s as if the heath had finally surrendered to him.

There are many more hurdles to come, mostly from other people, and a little hail. Arcel populates the story fairly rapidly after Kahlen decides on a location and with assistance from some locals, including a priest, Anton (Gustav Lindh), who help procure some workers. A supposed folly becomes reality. Kahlen builds a house, burns the heather to prepare the land, fends off outlaws that come creeping in the dark and forms a de facto family with a stray, Anmai Mus (Melina Hagberg), and a runaway servant, Ann Barbara (a spiky Amanda Collin). He also makes a fast, dangerous enemy of the royal next door, De Schinkel (Simon Bennebjerg), a depraved noble with a melancholic cousin, Edel (Kristine Kujath Thorp).

With Mikkelsen as the story’s anchor, “The Promised Land” builds steadily and gracefully, drawing you in with drama and a welcome old-school commitment to rounded characters, moral clarity and emotionally satisfying storytelling. Arcel occasionally overloads the movie and some of the characters work less well than others, notably Anmai Mus, a wee charmer with a toothy smile who mostly exists to soften Kahlen’s edges. And while it’s understandable that both Edel and Ann Barbara would gravitate toward Kahlen, the dueling romances push the movie into predictability, something that Mikkelsen — with his slow-burn charisma and beautifully retrained performance — never does.

The Promised Land Rated R for bloody violence. In Danish and German, with subtitles. Running time: 2 hours 7 minutes. In theaters.

Manohla Dargis is the chief film critic of The Times, which she joined in 2004. She has an M.A. in cinema studies from New York University, and her work has been anthologized in several books. More about Manohla Dargis

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The Promised Land

• 4 out of 5 stars
• Recommended

Time Out says

Mads Mikkelsen is a towering presence is a period epic that simmers with political feeling

The most gripping film about potato farming since The Martian , this Danish period epic has Mads Mikkelsen on imperious form as a former soldier on an impossible mission to cultivate the bleak and forbidding landscape of Jutland. 

The title – its grabbier Danish name ‘Bastarden’ captures the film’s fierce spirit better – refers to a scrubby peninsular in the country’s western fringes. It’s so barren, everyone in the 18th century court of Frederick V has all but given up on it. Fortunately, there’s one thing more weathered and rugged than this forbidding landscape: Mikkelsen’s desperate army veteran Captain Ludvig Kahlen. This dogged and down-on-his-luck character has a pitch for the bigwigs: he will cultivate the land for the crown and in return, the king will ennoble him. It’s a safe bet for the crown. ‘The heath cannot be tamed’ is the received wisdom.

Early scenes, framed in widescreen under leaden skies, see Kahlen grinding fruitlessly away. He builds a homestead, hiring a pair of escaped servants to help, and forlornly tries to coax life from the dead soil. Danish filmmaker Nikolaj Arcel lets us feel the biting wind on Kahlen’s back and sense the fatigue, before ramping up the stakes with an old-fashioned villain. Enter Frederik de Schinkel (Simon Bennebjerg, extremely hissable), a local landowner who takes a jealous interest in the farmer’s progress, eager to maintain the status quo in his corner of Denmark.

The Promised Land makes for a gripping man-versus-wilderness survival story with unmistakable political undertones, but it’s also nimble enough to allow romance to blossom under its slate-grey skies, when the sweetly abashed Captain catches the eye of his steely new hire (Amanda Collin) and de Schinkel’s poised fiancée (Kristine Kujath Thorp). 

It’s the  most gripping film about potato farming since   The Martian

Mikkelsen communicates his character’s gradual softening via the tiniest expressions. It’s a masterclass in less-is-more minimalism and wins you over to a man who can be a bit of a basterden himself when you first meet him.  

The talented Arcel has had a rollercoaster decade or so, veering from the Oscar-nominated acclaim of A Royal Affair (a Danish period piece set a few years later) to the 15-percent-on-Rotten-Tomatoes ignominy of his Hollywood blockbuster, The Dark Tower . Here, he’s crafted a kind of Danish The Last of the Mohicans that’s full of passion and political conviction. It should stand the test of time almost as well as its rugged hero.   

In US theaters Feb 2 and UK cinemas Feb 16.

Cast and crew

• Director: Nikolaj Arcel
• Screenwriter: Anders Thomas Jensen, Nikolaj Arcel
• Mads Mikkelsen
• Amanda Collin
• Soren Malling

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‘The Promised Land’ Review: Mads Mikkelsen Grows Potatoes When the Chips Are Down in a Rip-Roaring Historical Drama

A commoner-turned-captain is locked in a grisly land battle with a dastardly nobleman in Nikolaj Arcel's entertaining, broad-brush epic, lent weight by its ever-reliable star.

By Guy Lodge

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Also hard and rugged and forbiddingly beautiful? Denmark’s Jutland Heath, a vast, sprawling expanse of near-barren land depleted by Stone Age farmers, where only a rolling rug of mauve-brown heather survives its sandy soil. Introductory title cards explain an 18th-century government policy of inviting foreign settlers to cultivate the land, with little success. “The heath cannot be tamed,” reads the final one — a pretty irresistible opening salvo, practically begging the viewer to ask “Or can it?” as the imposingly upright Kahlen stomps onto the scene.

It’s a solid if back-breaking plan, and would proceed steadily enough if not for the unseemly envy of neighboring nobleman Frederik De Schinkel (Bjenneberg), a petty local despot who insists, despite Kahlen’s permission from the King, that this scrubby land belongs to him. Raging, irrational spite is a driving dramatic motive in Arcel and Anders Thomas Jensen’s screenplay, adapted from Ida Jessen’s 2020 novel “The Captain and Ann Barbara”: Political particulars and conflicts of the heart are slowly sanded down to a pleasingly classical duel between pure good and pure evil, instigated when De Schinkel — Ann Barbara and Johannes’ former master — recaptures and gruesomely tortures the latter to death.

With the bereaved Ann Barbara staying on as Kahlen’s housekeeper as the other workers desert, and plucky Romani orphan Anmai Mus (Hagberg Melina) doggedly forcing her way into the household, a tender makeshift family unit takes shape. Were it not for the hysterically deranged lord across the moor sporadically tormenting the good farmer and slaughtering his help, “The Promised Land” would almost play out as a kind of Scandi “Little House on the Präirie,” with affecting everyday concerns of health, hearth and home countered by an escalating blood feud of far more outlandish fictional proportions.

Elsewhere, the top-heavy script also takes on matters of racial prejudice (as Kahlen’s German migrant workers superstitiously shun the dark-skinned Anmai Mus) and squeezes in a curtailed love triangle between Kahlen, Ann Barbara and De Schinkel’s gilded-caged cousin Edel (Kristine Kujath Thorp) — subplots that scarcely have room to breathe amid all the brawny, bloody back-and-forth. But it all just about hangs together, in part because Mikkelsen’s wounded, watchful performance bridges the film’s gung-ho heroics with its more soulful ambitions, and in part because Arcel — comfortably back on home turf as a director, after 2017’s drab Stephen King adaptation “The Dark Tower” — has a pleasingly sturdy, old-school feel for grand-scale period filmmaking.

Reviewed at Venice Film Festival (Competition), Aug. 30, 2023. Running time: 127 MIN. (Original title: "Bastarden")

• Production: (Denmark-Germany-Sweden) A Magnolia Pictures release of a Zentropa Entertainments production in co-production with Zentropa Berlin, Zentropa Sweden, Film I Väst. (World sales: TrustNordisk, Copenhagen.) Producer. Louise Vesth. Co-producers: Fabian Gasmia, Katja Lebedjewa, Lizette Jonjic, Tine Mikkelsen.
• Crew: Director: Nikolaj Arcel. Screenplay: Arcel, Anders Thomas Jensen, based on the novel "The Captain and Ann Barbara" by Ida Jessen. Camera: Rasmus Videbæk. Editor: Olivier Bugge Coutté. Music: Dan Romer.
• With: Mads Mikkelsen, Simon Bennebjerg, Amanda Collin, Kristine Kujath Thorp, Hagberg Melina, Gustav Lindh. (Danish dialogue)

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Promised Land Reviews

An important film and a fine addition to the Van Sant filmography.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4.0 | Sep 20, 2020

Promised Land delivers the promise of a future if we just open our hearts and minds.

Full Review | Nov 27, 2019

Promised Land is a good film that was on the cusp of being great. Regrettably, the unwillingness to dig deeper into its important issues ends up lessening the film's impact.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Feb 25, 2019

What future the children will have without their parents signing gas leases, given the state of the agricultural industry in America, is not the concern of anyone in this movie or anyone who made it. Neither was making a realistic, original film.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Dec 18, 2018

Promised Land is inherently flawed, but the journey to self-destruction is mostly enjoyable.

Full Review | Oct 22, 2018

Promised Land is a smart, character driven drama that takes an insightful look at a compelling environmental issue... But as the second act progresses, the movie begins to lose momentum.

Full Review | Aug 21, 2018

The result is interesting, well-acted and always watchable, particularly on the ruthless tactics employed to win the day. But it also feels a little simplistic and it's disappointing to see Hollywood formula creeping in right at the end.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 2, 2017

Ultimately, it comes down to the difference between narrative and advocacy, and advocacy (in most cases) isn't terribly dramatic.

Full Review | Jun 21, 2016

Van Sant's direction isn't nearly as flashy as it was in 2009's "Milk," but he provides the right amount of visual propulsion to keep the story moving along.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 16, 2016

The road to movie hell is paved with good intentions.

Full Review | May 3, 2015

Damon and Krasinski's script isn't completely solid, but it follows a believably wayward path to a lovely, muted ending.

Full Review | Nov 5, 2013

An engaging film about the dangers of fracking and the crass manipulation employed by its proponents.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | Jun 18, 2013

The film never makes a convincing argument against fracking, probably because it's too busy being cloying.

Full Review | Original Score: C | May 13, 2013

Gus Van Sant's Promised Land is an engaging performance-driven drama that works more often than not.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | May 7, 2013

... Van Sant's eye and sense of poetry no doubt elevate what's essentially an updated Frank Capra story ...

Full Review | Original Score: 87/100 | Apr 27, 2013

'You can't make natural gas from shale without fracking' doesn't quite have the same ring to it as 'You can't start a fire without a spark'.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 25, 2013

The pro-environment message here is more effective because of the film's subtlety, a casting twist featuring the likeable Matt Damon, and a script that doesn't insult its audience.

Full Review | Original Score: B- | Apr 23, 2013

There are some good scenes early on, and the conflict at the centre is real. But it's sentimental, Capraesque fare ...

Full Review | Apr 21, 2013

Thee film-makers' sincerity so indisputable, that Promised Land never entirely spins off the rails. It's hard to swallow, but easy to digest.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 19, 2013

Hydraulic fracturing might not be the most compelling subject for a movie, but it provides a topical backdrop for this engaging drama about ethics.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 19, 2013

Flickering Myth

Geek Culture | Movies, TV, Comic Books & Video Games

Movie Review – The Promised Land (2023)

May 27, 2024 by Robert Kojder

The Promised Land , 2023.

Directed by Nikolaj Arcel. Starring Mads Mikkelsen, Amanda Collin, Simon Bennebjerg, Kristine Kujath, Thorp Gustav, Lindh Jacob, Ulrik Lohmann, Morten Hee Andersen, Magnus Krepper, Felix Kramer, Thomas W. Gabrielsson, Søren Malling, Olaf Højgaard, Melina Hagberg, and Morten Burian.

The story of Ludvig Kahlen who pursued his lifelong dream: To make the heath bring him wealth and honor.

A cautionary tale about the price one pays to join an elite high society of noblemen and a surprisingly heartwarming tale about a found family, director Nikolaj Arcel’s The Promised Land (marking the filmmaker’s return to Danish features after a woeful misfire adapting Stephen King’s The Dark Tower ) is an arresting, marvelously shot historical 18th-century epic about an ambitious former German Army captain letting humanity take over his motives. His gradual softening change in behavior somewhat comes easily, considering that the obstacle in his way is a spoiled, psychopathic county judge who is under the impression that the land this general is trying to tame for potential settlement is his and is aware that allowing such a thing to happen would lessen his importance. 

Written alongside Anders Thomas Jensen and based on the novel by Ida Jessen (and inspired by real events), the bastard war veteran is Mads Mikkelsen’s Ludvig von Kahlen, determined to garner favor with the King and attain all the wealth and status he could dream of, plans to do so by defying the odds and proving that crops can be grown on the Jutland Heath. The financial treasury wing of the royal advisors is condescending, insisting it can’t be done and is disinterested in lending him the funds to hire the necessary workers and purchase the necessary resources to do so, but have, to an extent, assuming that he will perish during the grueling endeavor while also appearing as if they’re fulfilling the King’s wishes.

The hardened and emotionally steely Ludvig makes do with the pitiful financial allowance he has been granted, resorting to employing a runaway couple hiding from their sadistic master, Johannes and Ana Barbera (played by Morten Hee Andersen and Amanda Collins, respectively), while also strong-arming a “dark-skinned” orphan who routinely serves as a disarming decoy for a band of outlaws (looking to rob and steal from anyone they can wandering the area) into directly bringing him to their encampment to strike a service arrangement. 

It turns out that your highness and Ana are seeking sanctuary away from the previously mentioned demented landowner Frederik de Schinkel (Simon Bennebjerg), a detestable nutjob with an evil smirk who frequently abuses and rapes his Manor servants, all while pressuring his cousin Edel (Kristine Kujath Thorp) into marriage. Naturally, this intensely complicates everything Ludvig is setting out to do. with Frederik making their task more of a living nightmare than the earthly elements of the world. There are several scenes of torture and shocking, disturbing behavior, but the performance is calibrated in such a way that it feels sincere and horrifying rather than over-the-top for shock value.

Even when the arduous land taming is going well for Ludvig, he has to contend with difficult choices that force him to question what is more important; accomplishing the supposedly impossible and elevating his place in the world or the life of a foul-mouthed but sweet child that racist settlers will deem a bad luck curse to the settlement. In that respect, the very people Ludvig is building this settlement for are infuriatingly cruel for different reasons. Mads Mikkelsen lets all of this weigh on his face with deep thought and soul-shaking conflict as only he can, delivering an incredible performance that only gets richer the longer the film goes on. It’s also worth mentioning that there is a romantic aspect here that doesn’t feel forced.

With The Promised Land , Nikolaj Arcel has crafted an exhilarating experience grounded in humanity’s cruelty and compassion; it’s a muscular-mounted, action-packed tale bursting with profound emotional dynamics, sweet vengeance, and beautifully human storytelling.

Flickering Myth Rating  – Film: ★ ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Robert Kojder is a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association and the Critics Choice Association. He is also the Flickering Myth Reviews Editor. Check  here  for new reviews, follow my  Twitter  or  Letterboxd , or email me at [email protected]

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The Promised Land Review: A Classic Historical Epic with Swagger

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• The Promised Land is a Danish film that feels more epic than most Hollywood blockbusters, with its vast landscapes, romantic subplots, and swaggering hero.
• The film explores 18th century Denmark during the transition from feudalism to capitalism, focusing on a retired soldier's attempt to cultivate uninhabitable land using the potato.
• Mads Mikkelsen delivers a superb performance as the stubborn and ambitious Captain Kahlen, while Simon Bennebjerg shines as the villainous magistrate who opposes him.

Hollywood blockbusters may be getting longer (or perhaps bloated), but that doesn't mean there have been many great epics in recent years. Just because a Marvel or Mission: Impossible film is 150 minutes long, it isn't necessarily an epic. The Promised Land , a new Danish film by filmmaker Nikolaj Arcel, is only 127 minutes, but feels more epic in scope than most big studio pictures today. With its stubborn hero, vast landscapes, large supporting cast, dreamily romantic subplots, and lengthy span of time, The Promised Land is closer to David Lean's historical popcorn epics ( Lawrence of Arabia, Doctor Zhivago ) than an international arthouse film.

At the same time, Arcel's film is culturally specific, deeply Danish, and well-rooted in 18th century monarchic absolutism (a period that Arcel and his star here, Mads Mikkelsen , also explored in their 2012 film, A Royal Affair ). It studies a time when feudalism was transitioning into capitalism, and people were becoming disillusioned with the hierarchies of nobility. The film begins in 1755, with a retired soldier looking to build a homestead on the notorious Jutland moorlands, an inhabitable expanse that the monarchy had hoped would yield crops and settlements.

By the time Captain Ludvig Kahlen retires, it's generally accepted that nobody can grow anything there. He uses his pension and convinces the royal court to let him build on the Jutland and cultivate it, and if he is successful, he will be granted a title of nobility along with funds and assistance from the state. He's initially laughed out of the room, but what do the king's men have to lose? They believe he's doomed to fail anyway. Little do they know, the Captain has brought back a unique food from abroad which can grow in even the harshest of conditions — the potato. So begins Ludvig Kahlen's harsh, painful attempts to create a new life.

A Beautiful Barren Setting for a Battle of Man vs. Nature

The promised land.

• The Promised Land is a grand historical epic like Spartacus.
• Rasmus Videbæk's cinematography captures the landscape beautifully.
• Mads Mikkelsen is superb in a quietly seething role.
• Simon Bennebjerg makes for a phenomenal villain.
• The ending is a tad muted and the film is ahistorical.

Captain Kahlen heads to the desolate Jutland with all his belongings and engages in a lengthy duel with the soil. Nature and all its elements are captured beautifully by cinematographer Rasmus Videbæk, who creates soaring visuals of the Jutland throughout, along with some phenomenal closeups; every landscape is a face, and every face a landscape. Through rain and cold, Kahlen checks for water sources, digs into the ground, and builds a home. He befriends a priest at a local village (tenderly played by Gustav Lindh), who supplies Kahlen with two runaway servants who have escaped the cruel clutches of a local magistrate, Frederik Schinkel (played with delicious evil by Simon Bennebjerg).

Related: The Best Movies With a 'Character Against Nature' Type of Conflict

It's this magistrate who, along with nature itself, becomes Kahlen's greatest foe. Despite Kahlen's paperwork, Schinkel (who insists with humorous pomposity that people refer to him as "de Schinkel") claims to own the Jutland, secretly fearing the loss of his control if settlements develop there and if Kahlen becomes competing nobility.

Schinkel embodies nihilistic hedonism, telling Kahlen that chaos reigns as the only force in the universe. Kahlen is a firm believer in meritocracy, believing that if he works hard, he will honestly climb the aristocratic hierarchy and succeed in life. Schinkel maliciously reminds him that wherever there is power, there is no meritocracy — the people at the top have kicked the social ladder down behind them.

With the help of the escaped servants and the priest, Kahlen makes advances in the Jutland, but every step forward is contested by Schinkel. Kahlen has tunnel vision, obsessively focusing on his one goal and refusing to let anyone stop him. He's an honorable and fair man in a dishonest and unfair world, but he's also deliriously egotistical, risking the lives of others to pursue his own success. More and more people are drawn into his struggle, from a band of Romani travelers and fearful serfs to arriving settlers and a young gypsy child he essentially adopts. Like the classic Hollywood epics , the film incorporates romance, action, drama, and tragedy to tell a big story about a man and his moment in history.

Mads Mikkelsen Is a Danish God and Simon Bennebjerg Is His Devil

Mads Mikkelsen shines as Captain Ludwig Kahlen. He's a man of few words, but the character is defined more by the way he carries himself and the emotions hidden in his eyes. Mikkelsen is perfect for this. His strange, brutal beauty becomes believable throughout the runtime; he seems like a soldier and then a farmer, and he seems like a desperate man longing for honor and nobility in the eyes of society. He's cold and determined, but also deeply moral, and his understanding of the world clearly develops throughout the film.

Mikkelsen takes the haughty charm of his titular character in Hannibal , combines it with the quiet dignity of his work in films like The Hunt , and embraces the physicality of the Pusher films, combining them all to create an ethically ambiguous, wonderful character. The sparseness of his dialogue makes each word more meaningful, and his mastery of the man's gestures and piercing glances enhances the film greatly. Of course, the movie dramatizes the story of Kahlen greatly and takes a ton of historical liberties to create a more entertaining version than a realistic one. If viewers demand historical accuracy , they won't find it here.

Related: Best Mads Mikkelsen Movies, Ranked

The aforementioned Bennebjerg is also excellent as Schinkel. He has an inherent lunacy to him, but there's also a philosophical foundation to his misanthropy and malice. He truly believes in power. He's a misogynist, a murderer, a glutton, a liar, a thief, and a bully, essentially one of the most abhorrent characters in recent memory, and Bennebjerg obviously relishes the chance he has here. He creates a multidimensional villain, a pathetic young brat who demands his domination over everything and everyone, and meets his match with Kahlen.

They Don't Want You in the Promised Land

Aside from simply being an excellent popcorn epic, The Promised Land has an important message that remains applicable to this very day. Kahlen has a moral foundation, but the more he chases his ambitions, the more he compromises his humanity. He is a poor man, treated terribly by the upper class, but instead of fighting against the system which subjugates him, he wishes to become part of the upper class itself. By believing in the social hierarchy and respecting the concept of nobility, Kahlen is fighting to become the thing he hates. It's akin to a leftist climbing the corporate ladder.

When MovieWeb spoke to director Nikolaj Arcel , he expanded on this theme. "The most important thing for me, thematically, was that you really have to be careful how much of your life you spend trying to obtain certain goals," explained Arcel. "If that's all you're about, obtaining certain goals, then you're not going to win. You're not going to sort of conquer what life is really about. And I think that's what I really want people to think about. He's so close to losing everything that's important, just because he's so driven and ambitious and only is thinking about one thing." He continued:

I think that a lot of people can sort of recognize that. It's the classic 'lying on your deathbed' thing, thinking about what was important in life and then suddenly realizing, "Oh my god, I wasted so many years trying to achieve this or that, and it means nothing." What really means something is the love that I have for my children, or my wife, or my husband, or my parents, or my family.

The Promised Land will make you remember what really matters, and in the most entertaining of ways. The film is now in theaters from Magnolia Pictures. Check out our interview with Arcel below.

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‘the promised land’ review: mads mikkelsen smolders magnificently in nikolaj arcel’s gripping historical epic.

The Danish director and star of the Oscar-nominated 'A Royal Affair' reteam on this Nordic Western about a low-born military man determined to cultivate the wild Jutland heath against daunting odds.

By David Rooney

David Rooney

Chief Film Critic

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Mikkelsen plays Ludvig Kahlen, who defied his humble roots by rising to the rank of captain and being decorated for his military service in mid-18th-century Denmark. A proud man with drive and ambition, he submits a proposal to cultivate the barren Jutland heath and start a settlement there, a potentially lucrative project dear to the King that has defeated many men before Ludvig.

The bean-counters at the Royal Treasury scoff at the idea of pouring more money into what they see as a lost cause. But Kahlen offers to finance the venture with his soldier’s pension, asking for a noble title and an estate with servants in return. Given that the bureaucrats see no chance of success, they agree, figuring they can keep the King happy with zero outlay.

With nothing but a horse, a tent, a pistol to protect himself from bandits and a few tools to hack away at the hard ground, which is believed to be nothing but sand and rocks covered in coarse heather, Ludvig sets up camp and weathers the harsh elements. Eventually, he finds soil, which can be mixed with clay from the seaside to grow potatoes, a crop he has imported from Germany.

De Schinkel makes it difficult for Ludvig to find the laborers necessary to prepare the land for planting. But a young pastor (Anton Eklund) brings him a runaway couple, Johannes (Morten Hee Andersen) and Ann Barbara (Amanda Collin), who have escaped De Schinkel’s cruelty; Ludvig agrees to provide them with work and shelter, despite the legal risk. He also strikes a deal to employ the outlaws living in the woods, including an orphaned young Roma girl, Anmai Mus (Melina Hagberg), disparagingly referred to as a “darkling” and believed by the superstitious Danish peasants to bring bad luck.

Based on Ide Jessen’s 2020 historical novel The Captain and Ann Barbara , the script by Arcel and Anders Thomas Jensen lays out the exposition with brisk efficiency and incisive character definition. The film draws us into the mounting challenges faced by Ludvig as De Schinkel and his cronies play increasingly dirty, enlisting a group of murderous thugs to help when Kahlen begins making progress. A heartless display of vindictiveness by the landowner at the harvest ball is horrifying in its barbarism, underscoring the petulant tyrant’s belief that he can make his own laws.

Collin shows real fire in the role of a woman who has endured degrading treatment and vowed never to submit to it again, while Mikkelsen brings solemn depths to a taciturn man whose plan to get ahead is obstructed almost at every turn. Even when responding with burning indignation to De Schinkel’s most unscrupulous tactics, Mikkelsen’s performance remains measured, with Ludvig’s emotions largely internalized to great effect.

Arcel directs with a sure hand that balances the poignant strain of an outsider family struggling to stay together with the treachery of an antagonist whose ruthlessness has no limits, yielding tense action just as Ludvig appears to have succeeded in his endeavors.

Elements that could have lurched into melodrama — Ludvig’s flickers of romance with Edel, for instance, which complicates his understanding with Ann Barbara — are reined in by the disciplined direction and strong ensemble, and even if the villainy at times risks becoming overripe, it makes the payback all the more satisfying. This is a big Nordic Western that maintains its gravitas throughout as reality constantly reminds Ludvig that hard work and honesty are not always rewarded.

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Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The Promised Land’ on Hulu, in Which Mads Mikkelsen And His Big Ass Potatoes Carry a Gripping Historical Drama

Where to stream:.

• The Promised Land
• Mads Mikkelsen

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Mads Mikkelsen headlines The Promised Land ( now streaming on Hulu ), a historical drama from his native Denmark about a man with some really big potatoes. That’s a metaphor – you figure it out – and a literalism, as it’s inspired by the story of real-life soldier-turned-farmer Ludvig von Kahlen, who tackled the endeavor of an obsessive wacko by trying to turn an especially barren portion of Danish land into a lucrative potato farm. The film is director Nikolaj Arcel’s follow-up to his only Hollywood film, 2017’s doomed Stephen King adaptation The Dark Tower , and marks his return to form after the Oscar-nominated A Royal Affair . But the impression The Promised Land leaves is that Mikkelsen is as captivating an actor as ever.

THE PROMISED LAND : STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: “The heath cannot be tamed.” So go the words of harrumphing Danish officials who’ve sent men to cultivate the same heather-choked expanse of land and watched them fail over and over. But those men didn’t have potatoes, and Ludvig Kahlen (Mikkelsen) has crates full of them. It’s 1755. Ludvig He worked his way up from being a servant-class bastard son to becoming a captain in the army after 25 years in service – notably, something that would’ve happened a hell of a lot quicker had he been born in a higher social caste. He gets permission from the Royal Treasury to occupy and farm the heath, under the condition that he pays for everything himself. He agrees. He has naught but a few nickels from his military pension, but off he goes anyway, with a little help from the local vicar, Eklund (Gustav Lindh), and two workers who escaped indentured servitude, Ann Barbara (Amanda Collin) and her husband Johannes (Morten Hee Andersen). 

Two things to note here: One, Ludvig is a stoic man of few words who treats Ann Barbara and Johannes somewhat poorly, offering them only lodging and food to work the heath, and not much in the way of compassion; their situation as law-breaking escapees puts them in no position to negotiate a better deal. And two, the couple escaped from the born-of-privilege overmoneyed cretin who owns scads of land nearby, Schinkel (Simon Bennebjerg), and wants to own everything he sees, including the maidenhood of all his female servants. He also wants the heath. Why? Because it’s there, it seems. I’m not sure. But this is a guy dictated by greed greed greed, and for whom too much is never enough. He invites Ludvig over for dinner and for a good old-fashioned threatening: Get out or else. Ludvig stands his ground, because he has law and authority on his side – and then, for good measure, he almost steals Ludvig’s almost-but-not-quite fiancee Edel (Kristine Kujath Thorp), who raises an aroused eyebrow at this tall, weathered, principled man. Why doesn’t she want to marry Schinkel? Well, we hear he’s quite the rapist, and therefore a greasy turd slithering to the bottom of the toilet bowl of life. It’s all the personality that obscene amounts of inherited wealth and entitlement can buy.

The other question is why Ludvig desires to develop the heath in the first place. It sure seems like a miserable toil, and it’s almost comical how many shots we get of Ludvig pounding a sickle into the dry earth and sniffing handfuls of dirt. Like I said, miserable. But potatoes will grow in even the harshest conditions, and if he turns the heath into a bounty, he’ll earn a noble title and enjoy the higher-class status that’ll allow him to marry Edel. Yet as the wise man said, if only it were so simple: Schinkel may carry the title of judge, but he doesn’t give a rip about the law, and will force Ludvig off the heath even if he has to start killing people to do it, e.g., Johannes, who Schinkel tortures to death by pouring boiling water on him. But Ludvig isn’t above killing someone too – he was a career soldier, after all – if necessary to protect him and his own.

Ludvig keeps on dutifully cultivating, illegally hiring Romani “outlaws” to help. After a while, he almost has a makeshift family on his hands – he has a little sumpin-sumpin going with the grieving Ann Barbara, forming a loose love triangle with Edel, and they quasi-adopt Anmai Mus (Melina Hagburg), a Romani girl whose brown skin finds her labeled a bad luck charm by the many superstitious idiots around here. What with one circumstance and another, Ludvig finds himself in a pincer grip when he’s essentially forced to choose between what makes him happy – his obsessive pursuit of land, wealth and status, or the simple joys of being around people you love, and love you right back.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: At this point we should all be on board with Mikkelsen vehicles: The Promised Land , Another Round , Riders of Justice , et. al. This one thematically echoes Westerns from Once Upon a Time in the West to Australia to Killers of the Flower Moon and many points in between.

Performance Worth Watching: Mikkelsen’s subtlety here is sumptuous; he goes deep with few words, with the emphasis on his eyes, which have us continuously trying to read them by evaluating how narrow or wide they get. 

Memorable Dialogue: Ludvig’s thesis statement: “When the settlers come, they will cultivate the entire heath, and then the King will visit us.”

Schinkel’s thesis statement: “Chaos, ludvig.”

Sex and Skin: You don’t see much in a relatively tasteful sex scene between people who live in dim lighting and wear raggedy clothes and that looks pretty sad at first but is more subtly joyful upon further rumination.

Our Take: A goodly portion of The Promised Land goes by before we’re fully convinced Ludvig has some legitimate human emotions behind that dispassionate exterior. There are hints of empathy in Mikkelsen’s performance, that Ludvig has seen and endured horror and hardship, and it shows on his weary face; he also shows the occasional glimmer of sociopathy, just like your favorite classic-Western heroes who killed men and went about their business pretty much as usual. But he’s a saint compared to megapissants like Schinkel, a flea on a cur’s ass who sneers and smirks and boasts (and apparently really loves whatever the 18th-century version of Jell-o is) and is essentially a cartoon character projectile-vomiting his nihilism all over his lavish manor. You’ll absolutely love to loathe this guy.

We’ve seen this type of story in American and Australian Westerns before, of slightly screw-loose folk seeking conquest of inhospitable natural environments, searching for purpose and identity. Ranches, railroads, potato farms – they’re all symbols of quote-unquote progress, a capitalist Manifest Destiny sanctioned by governments who believe their god-given right is to cultivate civilization in all directions. The irony being, of course, that so few of the people involved meet the definition of “civilized,” since they’re fine with being classist and racist and, to put it bluntly, murderers.

The brunt of The Promised Land ’s compelling drama lies in Ludvig’s internal conflict as he questions his motivations, and we wonder if he’ll ever question the meaning of “nobility,” and realize that you can’t be a potato baron sanctioned by the King himself and be a decent human being. Mikkelsen leads a number of excellent performances lending thoughtful complications to his character arc, and the screenplay – by Arcel and Anders Thomas Jensen, adapting Ida Jenssen’s novel The Captain and Ann Barbara – not only keenly establishes the context, but also sets up a doozy of a confrontation with Schinkel that plays out in a potent and unexpected manner. There are times when the film goes large and political, and times when it stirs empathy for its characters. It’s a sweeping drama in that sense, and Arcel skillfully executes all facets of an epic historical saga. 

Our Call: No new ground is broken, but the drama is nevertheless fertile in the absorbing, smart and consistently well-directed and -acted The Promised Land . STREAM IT.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

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The Promised Land Streaming: Watch & Stream Online via Hulu

By Joon Dutta Roy

The Promised Land or Bastarden is a 2023 period drama thriller film. It features a former war hero, Ludwig Kahlen whose attempts at a sedentary lifestyle as well as maintaining an honorable societal position are thwarted by certain evil local forces. Upon its release, this Scandinavian masterpiece remained critically and popularly acclaimed.

Here’s how you can watch and stream The Promised Land via streaming services such as Hulu.

Is The Promised Land available to watch via streaming?

Yes, The Promised Land is available to watch via streaming on Hulu .

Set in 18 th -century Denmark, the film follows a retired war officer, Ludvig Kahlen who seeks permission from the royal court to use a derelict, barren moorland for cultivation. In exchange, he pleads for a noble title. Not everyone is on board with his plan and this is particularly true of Frederich Schnikel, a ruthless landlord who resorts to gruesome measures to destroy Kahlen’s efforts. This includes framing him for illegal actions that go into tarnishing his reputation in the community. Kahlen responds by covertly seeking the labor of Frederich’s former serfs, Ann Barbara, and Johannes Eriksen. Luck also favors Kahlen when Frederich’s Ede Helene sides with him.

Mads Mikkelsen plays Ludwig Kahlen. Other cast members include Amanda Collin, Simon Bennebjerg, Melina Hagberg, Gustav Lindh, and Kristine Kujath Thorp, to name a few.

Watch The Promised Land streaming via Hulu

The Promised Land is available to watch on Hulu.

Hulu is a popular subscription platform that contains a massive library of popular movies, shows, reality series, and original productions. Those who wish to avail of its facilities may opt for one of the service’s multiple membership plans.

You can watch via Hulu by following these steps:

• Go to Hulu.com/welcome
• Select ‘Start Your Free Trial’
• $7.99 per month or $79.99 per year (With Ads)
• $17.99 per month (No Ads)

Hulu (With Ads) is the cheapest option, providing users access to Hulu’s streaming library with commercials. Hulu (No Ads) is the service’s premium option, providing access to its library without any advertisements. There are also several bundles available with Hulu that pair the service with Disney Plus and ESPN Plus, along with Live TV plans that also include many live TV channels.

The Promised Land’s official synopsis is as follows:

“Denmark, 1755. Captain Ludvig Kahlen sets out to conquer a Danish heath reputed to be uncultivable, with an impossible goal: to establish a colony in the name of the king, in exchange for a royal title. A single-minded ambition that the ruthless lord of the region will relentlessly seek to put down. Kahlen’s fate hangs in the balance: will his endevours bring him wealth and honour, or cost him his life…?”

NOTE: The streaming services listed above are subject to change. The information provided was correct at the time of writing.

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