A Fortunate Man
A Fortunate Man () is a 2018 Danish drama film directed by Bille August. In August 2018, it was one of three films shortlisted to be the Danish entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 91st Academy Awards. The film's title aligns itself with the 2018 translation by Paul Larkin – A Fortunate Man, published by Museum Tusculanum Press – and is based upon the eight-volume novel, which is often erroneously translated into English as Lucky Per, written by Danish Nobel Prize-winning author Henrik Pontoppidan. It was originally published between 1898 and 1904. The film was released on American Netflix streaming on 19 April 2019. Plot The film is set in the late 19th century when the main character Peter Sidenius gets accepted to study engineering at a university. He leaves rural Jutland for Copenhagen and breaks ties with his overbearing, pious father and Christian, more specifically calvinist background. He hates his father and he rejects a gift of his father's pocket watch. The self-confident Peter, free of family and Christian religion, is poor but studies hard. He befriends a waitress who teaches him the ways of the city and introduces him to the world of sex but is dismissed on his rise up in social status. Peter meets Ivan Salomon, from a wealthy Jewish banking family. Ivan likes the ambitious, smart engineer and especially likes Peter's revolutionary grand future project to harness water and wind power to develop the country with electricity. Ivan helps Peter adjust to free-thinking intellectuals, new political thought, monied-class businessmen, cultural rules and expectations, and the Salomon family. Their daughter Jakobe was to marry Eybert, a little older, wealthy, and established Jewish man, but instead falls in love with Peter. Peter fails to win ministerial government approval for his plans. Phillip, the senior Salomon, decides to send Peter to Austria to further his engineering studies and get others' review of his plans for canals, windmills, and water energy. Peter and Jakobe are separated by his travels. Peter hears from his brother Eberhardt that their father is gravely ill; however, because the Sidenius family does not approve of Jakobe because she is Jewish, Peter leaves for Vienna and does not attend his father's funeral. Jakobe violates her own family norms by going to Austria to visit Peter. They exchange words and acts of love, and she becomes pregnant. As Austrian scholars approve of Peter's ideas, Ivan and his father set up financial backing. Jakobe is making wedding plans and a joint trip to England. Unbeknownst to Peter, his destitute widowed mother moves to Copenhagen and begs Peter to return to Christ. He is angry and leaves without the watch. A project meeting is set and everything is a go except for the local government minister's approval. Peter refuses to apologize for an earlier outburst and his pride and arrogance kill the project. Peter's mother dies and leaves him the watch with a letter of advice. Peter takes her body back to Jutland for burial