Although it scores anti-capitalist points, this grainy corporate melodrama - which could be described as a Dogme Dallas - is very much a human tragedy about the price of duty.
While Christoffer (Ulrich Thomsen) comes to share some of J. R.'s characteristics, he always remains a reluctant tyrant, having been lured back into the family firm he fled years before. So it's possible to sympathise with his plight as his tough business decisions alienate him from both his sister Karina Skands and actress wife Lisa Werlinder - a wife who's unable to command the same loyalty of Thomsen that he feels he owes his scheming mother, Ghita Nørby, and the steel mill on which their privilege is founded.