Clash of Egos 2006

Tonny [Ulrich Thomsen] is an aggressive husband and father, so rage-addled that he ends up in jail for KO’ing a man in public. His wife, Tanja [Ellen Hillingsø], grew humiliated and promptly divorced him, but Tonny luckily managed to swing occasional custody of his two children.

On one of their cherished afternoons together, Tonny and the kids head to the cinema to see the latest Harry Potter installment, only to discover the screening is sold out. With no good options left, they must endure a thoroughly miserable afternoon at an über-pretentious experimental Danish film, The Murderer, directed by the snotty, passive‑aggressive artiste Claus Volter [Nikolaj Lie Kaas]. Frustrated, Tonny smashes a display case in the lobby (and barely avoids re-incarceration), an act that costs him his custodial time and sends him on a quest for a refund of their ticket money.

Tom Frej [Peter Mygind], caught up in the same chaos, tracks Volter down on a film set where the director is shooting the final film of a trilogy. In a heated confrontation, Volter shoves Tom, triggering a legal clash. Tom’s demand is straightforward: he wants the money spent on Volter’s film back and he asks to be the co-writer and co-director of Volter’s next project. Volter views this as a disruption to his artistic expression, but he compromises with his Producer [Kristian Halken].

Tom, with the support of his partner [Line Kruse] as his ally, undertakes a rewrite of the script to craft something that will be enjoyable for him and his children. Volter tries to inject his own artistic interpretation into the project, but Tom, the producer, and the lead actress [Mille Dinesen] disagree and push forward with Tom’s more accessible approach. Volter removes his name from the film and botches the editing, resulting in a piece that feels jaunty and disconnected, yet critics embrace it and grant it top ratings.

The paradox does not escape Volter, who ends up paying Tom a debt for watching his previous work. In the end, Tom recognizes that the film may not be perfect, but it achieves its core aim: delivering something meaningful for his children and validating his choice to pursue a more grounded, audience-friendly path. He leaves the screening with his love, [Line Kruse], seeking a quieter life and a chance to enjoy cinema away from the ego clashes that powered this strange, meta-cinematic journey.