The Good Traitor (2020)

Henrik Kaufmann was Denmark's ambassador in Washington when Denmark was occupied by Germany, and he refused to accept prime minister Stauning's collaboration with the Nazis, opting to appoint himself the representative of "Free Denmark" and allowing the Americans to build bases in Greenland. In return, he got access to half of his country's gold reserves, which were in the USA, and was thus able to finance other Danish embassies (including Argentina and Portugal) that joined the rebellion. Thanks to Kaufmann and the resistance movement in his homeland, the Danes, who were designated as defectors and cowards by the Allies, were forgiven and allowed to join the UN and NATO after the war. Christina Rosendahl's film tells this story through conversations between Kaufmann (Ulrich Thomsen), his right-hand man Povl Bang-Jensen (Mikkel Boe Følsgaard), President Roosevelt (Henry Goodman) and his representative, the diplomat Adolf Berle (Burn Gorman). Most scenes are set in luxurious interiors, and our only insights into the progress of the war are given through oral reports or excerpts from radio broadcasts. "Tell, don't show" is never a good idea, and even black and white documentary clips would have been a definite improvement. We do, however, get exclusive fly-on-the-wall access to Kaufmann and his wife's bedroom and see and hear about his affair with his sister-in-law, just as we finally see the wife (Denise Gough) cut the throat of her cancerous husband and then commit suicide at the Skodsborg Badehotel in 1963.

Can currently be viewed on Netflix.