Reel Rundown: ‘The Girl With the Needle’ is artful tale following young woman’s struggle post-WWI

If you want to find the best way to surprise someone, misdirection is a good tool to use. As well as it works in life, it’s especially effective in the arts.

Take the Danish film “The Girl With the Needle.” That title refers to Karoline (Vic Carmen Sonne), a woman who is in such dire straits that she attempts to use said needle to resolve the kind of unexpected situation that, since the beginning of time, has been all too common for women.

But as it turns out, the film – directed by Magnus von Horn and written by him and Line Langebek Knudsen – isn’t really about Karoline at all. It’s more about the society in which she lives, post-World War I Denmark, and a woman whom Karoline meets who fills a needed role in that society. Or at least appears to.

When we first meet Karoline, she is working in a factory that, during the war, had made military uniforms. She has to work because her husband, who went off to fight, hasn’t been heard from for a full year. And because there’s no death certificate, she can’t receive any widow’s benefits.

Her situation seems to look up when she begins a relationship with an upper-class factory owner (Joachim Fjelstrup. With superbly bad timing, Karoline’s husband (Besir Zeciri) returns. But his face is severely disfigured, so she rejects him. Worse, her new relationship flounders.

Worst of all, though, she’s pregnant. Yet when she attempts to resolve matters in a public bathhouse the only way she knows how, with a foot-long needle, fate intervenes: Dagmar (Trine Dryholm) comes to her aid and tells her there is a better way.

But to get there, Karoline has to deliver the baby, an event that occurs in what appears to be a packing plant to the horror of a number of male co-workers … and one friendly, helpful woman. And then she has to return to the squalid apartment that she’s now sharing with, yes, the disfigured husband.

Which is when Dagmar re-enters the picture. The owner of a candy store, Dagmar has a sideline: For a fee she will take in unwanted babies, promising to find them good homes … say, with a doctor or a lawyer. Karoline agrees to give up her own baby, and in lieu of a fee acts as a wet nurse when needed – at times even to Dagmar’s 7-year-old daughter Erena (Ava Knox Martin).

It’s only with time that Karoline begins to grow suspicious of Dagmar. And eventually she discovers the horrible truth behind the woman’s supposed goodwill.

Director von Horn has said in interviews that he was interested in creating a modern horror tale, one set in the past, and he emphasizes a feel for both with graphic black and white photography. But, too, he wanted to tie his film to the present day, a time when women’s rights around the world remain under threat.

An Oscar nominee for Best International Feature Film, “The Girl With the Needle” is based on a true story – at least as far as Dagmar’s character is involved. Although it isn’t yet playing in area theaters, the film can be streamed through MUBI and Amazon Prime.

Just don’t be misdirected. Artful and socially conscious as it might be, it’s no easy movie to watch.