Holiday 2019

Michael [Lai Yde] is a drug dealer who takes his friends, including his younger girlfriend and collaborator Sascha, on a vacation to Bodrum in the Turkish Riviera. The group spends time in the sun, by the water park, and at meals, painting a picture of leisure that soon reveals a darker undercurrent.

That night, Michael drugs Sascha and sexually assaults her, a brutal act that disrupts the sense of ease the trip had promised.

While wandering an ice cream shop, Sascha meets two Dutch men, Frederik and Tomas, and chats with them casually. Later, at a restaurant, she spots the Dutch pair again and speaks to them once more, hinting at the growing tension between desire, danger, and power on the trip.

Sascha and Tomas spend another night together, sharing drugs in a tense, charged moment that underscores the uneasy dynamics surrounding the group.

When one of Michael’s men, Musse, shows up at the house after a contact fails to arrive, Michael viciously beats him, fearing the police could have followed Musse to him. Still enraged, he rapes Sascha in a harrowing act that is witnessed by an unknown party in the house, who does nothing to intervene. The assault crystallizes the sense that the villa and the vacation are a stage for control and fear. Michael, meanwhile, views the drug deals as successful and rewards Musse in his own stark manner.

Alone, Sascha visits the nearby harbour, where she spots the Dutch flag on one of the boats and realizes it must be Tomas’. She joins the two Dutch men on the boat for drinks when Michael happens upon them, and jealousy flares as he asserts himself, introducing himself as Sascha’s employer and climbing aboard to join the small gathering.

Tomas recounts how he left his suburban life and sales career for the boat, claiming it brought him a sense of soul. Michael remains skeptical, suggesting Tomas might be chasing sex more than freedom. As the night progresses and the group heads home, Michael questions Sascha about how she knows Tomas and how often they have met.

Back at the house, Michael finds Tomas on Sascha’s phone contact list and calls him, inviting him to join for steaks on the pretense of seeking advice about buying a boat. The dinner stretches on as Michael relays stories of his crimes to intimidate Tomas, then presses further about Tomas’s sexual interest in Sascha, making her increasingly uncomfortable. The atmosphere grows threatening until Michael orders Tomas to leave under the threat of harm; Tomas complies, leaving Sascha crestfallen.

Sascha returns to Tomas’ boat the next day, her neck bruised, to apologize for the earlier evening. Tomas recognizes that Michael is abusive but refuses to speak with Sascha about it, telling her—and Frederik, who is lurking nearby—that she and her friends will be dead or in prison in a few years and that he won’t whisk them away on his boat to “rescue” them from their circumstances.

In a moment of cold resolve, Sascha snaps and strikes Tomas over the head with a glass pitcher, killing him. She discards the pitcher and her shoes into the sea, then briefly contemplates reporting what happened at a Turkish police station but leaves without confessing anything and returns to Michael.

The following day, Sascha watches Michael’s men clean Tomas’ boat of evidence of the murder. When Frederik arrives looking for Tomas, she lies that he stood her up and then leads Frederik away, ensuring he cannot witness the cleanup.

The film closes on a troubling note: Sascha appears to be happy, partying with Michael on his new luxury yacht, as though nothing has happened, leaving the truth of the night and its consequences obscured behind a veneer of celebration.