Frelle Petersen’s Hjem Kaere Hjem (Home Sweet Home) fits neatly into the clear-eyed yet empathetic gaze of the Danish writer-director’s oeuvre. His 2019 drama Onkel (Uncle) followed an ailing man being cared for by his young niece. Home Sweet Home, also an unvarnished look at caregiving, explores both the physical indignities of aging and the mental toll it takes on the people looking after the aged. The film recently premiered in the Panorama section of the Berlin International Film Festival and came in third place for the Panorama Audience Award.

Home Sweet Home reunites Petersen with frequent collaborator Jette Søndergaard. She plays Sofie, a single mother who begins a new job as a caregiver for the elderly in her town. Sofie must simultaneously carve out enough time to care for her 10-year-old daughter Clara (Mimi Bræmer Dueholm), whom she shares custody of with her former husband. 

The film familiarizes viewers with the regimented routines of caregiving, emphasizing the repetitive nature of the tasks over and over to underline just how much of oneself is depleted in service of another. Even so, it doesn’t let monotony seep into this broader framework. Instead, it finds lightness and amusement when it hones in on the patients’ personality quirks, such as one elderly woman’s craving for a single spoonful of Nutella at the end of each day. Like Onkel, Home Sweet Home locates meaning in mundanity.

Little details assume larger significance over the course of the film. For instance, one caregiver mentions that they aren’t allowed to put up their patients’ bed rails as doing so is considered a show of “force”, but she does so anyway for one patient out of concern. Later in the film, Sofie has to rush out of the same client’s house quickly. Petersen’s camera lingers on his bed after she leaves; the bar isn’t raised, which immediately prompts the sinking feeling that this elderly man is about to fall out. 

That Home Sweet Home prompts the viewer to pay attention to every little nugget of information is a fitting complement to its theme about empathetic listening being the most valuable skill a caregiver can possess. 

The patients are obviously reliant on Sofie physically—to help them sit up or bathe or eat—but they’re also looking to unburden themselves emotionally. Sofie’s designation means they can tell her things they don’t expect anyone else to understand. In one scene, a client’s wife confesses that she lost her husband long ago. The dementia-stricken man she lives with is a stranger to her. 

In an interview with Cineuropa, Petersen said his research involved being trained as a home care worker by an experienced care worker herself, who also appears in the film. She’s one of several non-professional actors rounding out the cast, adding to Home Sweet Home’s air of authenticity. 

Denmark is a welfare state, which means that all its residents have access to publicly financed education and medical services, regardless of income level. According to the World Happiness Report 2024, it’s the happiest country for people over 60. “I think the evidence is quite clear…you’re more likely to be quite happy if you live in a welfare state than if you don’t,” Søren Harnow Klausen, a professor of philosophy at the Department for the Study of Culture at the University of Southern Denmark, told HuffPost last year. 

The same system that allows Sofie’s clients access to free healthcare, however, is weaponized against her by the daughter of one of them. Nothing Sofie does is good enough for the easily irritable woman, who treats her with hostility from the get-go, berates her for the smallest perceived slights, and unfairly assumes the worst of her, attacking her character repeatedly. She feels entitled to Sofie’s time, even at the expense of other elderly patients—after all, her taxes are paying for it. 

A caregiver’s schedules are rigid—Sofie must complete all her tasks for a client within a strict 25-minute period and then swiftly move on to the next. Fulfilling a client’s unexpected request, such as taking out the trash, could mean she might not have the time to get to a scheduled one. 

Even so, Petersen uses that tight window of time to give audiences a glimpse into entire worlds of loneliness and heartache. Even though Sofie has to leave quickly, cinematographer Jørgen Johansson’s camera stays behind with her clients in their empty houses. 

One sits in her living room in silence with the television off, no one else for company. Another watches his wall clock, presumably counting down the time till he next has a visitor, likely only Sofie. When she has to rush out early one day, unable to participate in her usual ritual of having a cup of coffee with one client’s wife, Home Sweet Home not only captures the disappointment in the lonely woman’s voice, but further emphasizes it with a closeup of the uneaten slices of cake on the table, far too many for just one person. 

Denmark adopts a policy of “aging in place,” or allowing the elderly to stay in their own homes for as long as possible, with the support of care services. This allows them a measure of dignity: staying in the environment they feel most comfortable and safe, without the stress of having to acclimate to unfamiliar surroundings. But this leaves those without families bereft of not only company, but also urgent help in case of an emergency, like a major fall. Many of Sofie’s clients have digital wristbands to send distress signals, but it could still be a while before anyone gets to them.

Another film about the resilience and fortitude of caregivers that premiered at this year’s Berlinale is Petra Volpe’s Heldin (Late Shift), a Swiss drama that follows Floria (Leonie Benesch), the sole harried, overworked nurse at a hospital’s surgical ward. Set over a single shift and edited to look like it’s unfolding in real-time, Volpe’s film assumes the tone and tension of a high-stakes thriller, tracking Floria’s attempts to keep her composure as she races from room to room, dealing with uncooperative patients, mounting pressure and unnerving emergencies. 

It’s a level of robotic efficiency required from a very human, and very fallible, woman. Even as she resolutely spares a few minutes to engage in conversation with her patients, uplift their spirits, or just listen sympathetically to their outpourings of doubt and uncertainty, the clock makes its intrusive presence felt. Here, every second counts. 

Home Sweet Home, by contrast, adopts a deliberately measured pace, even as its protagonist, Sofie, is rushed. Petersen renders his characters with such intimacy that even within the few minutes Sofie spends with them, the film makes you feel like you’ve known them for years.

Despite the intentions of the people who keep it running, Home Sweet Home also depicts how the system is fundamentally broken-– full of arbitrary, one-size-fits-all rules and disappointing outcomes. As much as caregivers pour themselves into their work, they’re still held back by bureaucratic red tape. 

For instance, they aren’t allowed to use their clients’ stoves—they can only serve microwaved meals. The best caregivers, however, follow compassionate instinct over corporate policy, putting concern for their clients over concern for their jobs. One of Sofie’s clients is delighted to finally receive stovetop-made porridge—the microwaved version has neither the right texture, nor taste.

Yet like any profession, caregiving also attracts those who are only there for a paycheque. One worker’s carelessness crosses over into cruelty—he repeatedly leaves one elderly patient in full diapers for hours, assuming that Sofie, whose shift follows his, will attend to it when she gets there. When Sofie publicly calls him out, their supervisor acknowledges that he isn’t “one of their best,” but being understaffed means she can’t afford to fire him outright. 

In becoming a present and attentive caregiver, Sofie inadvertently starts slipping into the role of a neglectful parent. She picks up more and more shifts, reasoning that the elderly need her, but is slow to realize that she’s come to need them just as much, that she’s formed an attachment to them, against the advice of her superior. 

The title Home Sweet Home becomes ironic—the client’s homes are lonely spaces, briefly enlivened only when Sofie visits, but gradually, her own home becomes bereft of laughter and joy as she’s overworked to the point of exhaustion. Clara begins to prefer spending time with her father and his new partner. 

Petersen’s dialogue is incredibly moving, but he’s also adept at wordless storytelling. He creates images and scenes so striking that when he returns to them, it’s immediately apparent what’s missing, the absence sparking an acute sense of loss. Early on, for instance, Sofie and Clara brush their teeth together, a well-established bedtime routine full of laughter and goofing around. 

But as Sofie’s job gets more demanding and fatigue takes its toll, Home Sweet Home depicts Clara watching television alone, Sofie fast asleep on the couch behind her. When it cuts to the bathroom later, Clara’s brushing her teeth alone. The silence, in the absence of banter or playful bonding, only compounds her loneliness. 

On the other hand, Petersen relies on just images to demonstrate Sofie’s exceptional empathy as a caregiver. In one scene, one of her elderly clients rues about being unable to fry himself eggs, a dish he craves; the next time Sofie sees him, the scene includes a closeup of a sunny-side-up egg on the plate she’s served him.

The turnover rate for care workers in Denmark is high, linked to the emotional and physical toll the job takes. Home Sweet Home is remarkably unflinching in its depiction of the demands of caregiving—one of its first shots is the sight of an open stoma as Sofie learns how to change a client’s colostomy bag. 

In another scene, she’s given detailed instructions on how to clean a penis properly; she winds up doing exactly that later in the film. Petersen contrasts these images of the infirm with Sofie’s other job as a children’s gymnastics coach, depicting young bodies of boundless energy. Sofie, however, is just as resolute as the task needs her to be. Caregiving is the job she signed up for. It gives her joy and a sense of purpose. 

What she’s less prepared for, though, is the mental toll of the job coming to an end. Sofie is warned that she must stay detached from her patients, but this isn’t realistic. When she arrives at one of her favorite client’s homes to discover that the elderly woman has passed away in her sleep, it shatters her. Death is an inevitability in Sofie’s profession, but that doesn’t blunt its tragedy. For all she’s done, the big ‘what if’ always haunts her—could she have done more? 

(This coverage of the Berlinale is made possible with the support of the Goethe-Institut / Max Mueller Bhavan Mumbai).