as a pre-emptive defence mechanism. Maybe, the Danish director thought, critics and audiences will check their own empathy levels before deciding whether they liked her new drama or not. Maybe strangers will be kind. Sorry to burst that presumption, but dear lord, I’ve been searching high and low for something nice to say about this mess, and I have come up nearly empty.
Okay, one kind word: Bill Nighy is clearly enjoying himself playing a New York businessman whose caviar restaurant improbably becomes a beacon for a host of impoverished ne’re-do-wells. But that is the only nicety I can muster for this otherwise cartoonish treacle, in which every character behaves like an alien unfamiliar with our world and every emotion is underscored by an offensively blunt score.