Susanne Bier's interest in contemporary stories, identities, and situations is evident in the three films and one television series with queer characters and elements that will be discussed here. Two are Swedish films made before her international breakthrough: Like It Never Was Before (Pensionat Oskar, 1995) and Once in a Lifetime (Livet är en schlager, 2000). One is a Danish film with a clear international approach in story, setting and characters: Love Is All You Need (Den skaldede frisør, 2012). The most recent production, The Night Manager (2016), is a six-part British-American television series with no Scandinavian affinities at all. The shifting national/transnational contexts not only illustrate how Bier's career has taken her from rather modest-sized Swedish productions to larger international ones, but also corresponds with a lesser attention to local, not only Scandinavian, contexts. A parallel shift can be seen in how attuned the films are to queer concerns, with the two earlier films developing queer characters and themes in a more foregrounded and nuanced way.

LIKE IT NEVER WAS BEFORE

Both Like It Never Was Before and Once in a Lifetime were written by Jonas Gardell, a Swede, who already at this time, in Scandinavia, was a very well-known writer and stand-up comedian. He was also, at the time, one of the few gays to be a public figure, and whose sexual identity was common knowledge. His significance as a gay role model can hardly be overstated, a fact made all the more poignant by the release of these two films that foreground queer identities, undermine heteronormative hegemony, and thematize marginalization (Hamrud 2013). Like It Never Was Before tells the story of Rune, a middle-class and middle-aged family man who, during a summer vacation with his family at a seaside inn, gets more and more involved with Petrus, a younger man working at the inn. Initially Rune does not clearly understand his attraction to Petrus, but eventually he breaks with his habitual life and embraces change. Once in a Lifetime is about Mona, a care assistant who gets accepted to the Swedish Eurovision Song Contest qualifications. While homosexuality is not foregrounded in the same way in this film, a discourse on normality and marginalization is nevertheless highlighted—primarily through Mona's transvestite brother, Candy Darling, and Daniel, whom Mona assists and who has cerebral palsy (CP).