Said Jesus: “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”

Says this film: it is easier for a stray cat to enter the Eurozone than it is for an undocumented refugee.

Directed by Maria Sødahl (Hope, 2019), The Last Resort (originally Paradis) is a gripping, deeply discomforting Danish-Norwegian drama set in a resort on the Canary Islands and focused on a middle-class family treating itself to an all-inclusive holiday.

You know the kind: all-you-can-eat buffets; kids entertained for free while parents relax poolside with a cocktail; bus tours during the day and karaoke parties at night. Not quite White Lotus, but comfortable and familiar, and schoolteacher Mikkel (Esben Smed) and upper-echelon bureaucrat Louise (Danica Curcic) feel they deserve some pampering.

Danica Curcic and Esben Smed in Paradis/The Last Resort

All is going well – save for a couple of uncomfortable encounters with fellow tourists – until Mikkel’s hire car hits someone on an unlit road. The victim is badly shaken, his leg is bleeding, and the family does the right thing: they take him to hospital. While waiting...