You are here:

What's Wrong with This Picture?

Name: What's Wrong with This Picture?
Director: Lotte Svendsen
Released: 2004
Duration: 91 min

Representation Score

7.8/10

Good

2004

Director

Lotte Svendsen

Runtime

91 minutes

Average Rating

No ratings yet

New Showbiz Analysis

Lotte Svendsen’s anthology uses social vignettes to explore the breakdown of traditional domestic stability and modern identity. The film excels at deconstructing middle-class norms and exploring political relativism through characters like Svend, the lone Marxist in Copenhagen. However, the work struggles with breadth in its representation of diverse groups. The narrative leans heavily toward a traditional Western demographic, lacking visible LGBTQ+ presence or significant racial diversity within its localized Danish setting. While the film provides nuanced commentary on social friction, it occasionally relies on disability as a narrative convenience rather than providing meaningful, independent character development.

Watch this, not that →

Category Breakdown

Does What's Wrong with This Picture? have LGBTQ+ representation?

Fair

The film doesn't explicitly include LGBTQ+ identities or non-binary gender expressions. It focuses mainly on straight relationships and social interactions.

How does What's Wrong with This Picture? portray gender?

Good

The film challenges traditional gender roles by showing tension in domestic life. Women are portrayed through performative femininity or as individuals seeking self-reinvention.

How racially and ethnically diverse is What's Wrong with This Picture??

Limited

The setting seems to be a relatively homogeneous look at Danish society. There is no indication of a multi-ethnic cast within the Copenhagen-based narrative.

How does What's Wrong with This Picture? represent religion and culture?

Excellent

The film strongly critiques middle-class consumerism and political organizing. It prioritizes systemic critique and moral ambiguity over traditional institutional stability.

Does What's Wrong with This Picture? include disability representation?

Fair

A character with a mental disability is present but lacks independent ability to act. The character serves primarily as a plot device for another character's social deception.

Present on Screen

Strong critique of middle-class consumerism and performative domesticity.
Engaging exploration of political organizing and systemic social critique.
Challenges traditional gender roles through character-driven tension.

Limited or Absent

Lack of visible LGBTQ+ representation or queer presence.
Limited racial and ethnic diversity within the localized setting.
Use of disability as a plot device rather than an independent character.

Official Synopsis

A snapshot of the state of the Danish nation: in one of the stories, a woman enters a pole-sitting contest in a desperate bid to reinvent herself. Another is about Erik, whose wife has been lobbying a Better Homes and Gardens type magazine to do a spread on their perfect home. When the editors finally relent, she makes Erik sip his red wine in the laundry room lest he stain their cream-colored couches. Svend, the last remaining Marxist in Copenhagen, is the impassioned organizer of a political mass meeting where no one shows up. Finally, Jens, a pizza and porno connoisseur, connives his way to some booty by convincing Gry the model that he lives with his mentally challenged brother. Over the course of a week, their paths cross and nothing, and nobody, is ever quite the same again.

How are these scores produced? →