Synnøve Macody Lund

In Saw X (2023), Synnøve Macody Lund's Cecilia Pederson runs a clinic with a manner so softly reassuring that we begin to listen for what might be wrong. This is a useful, controlled performance in a film we find decent but overextended. We grew impatient as the revenge stretched into a lecture.

Her screen career began with a lead role as Diana Brown in Headhunters (2011). The move through Norwegian and international thrillers has since made authoritative professional women a recurring part of her work. Black Widows (2016) gave her a main role as Johanne Rønningen; The Girl in the Spider's Web (2018) placed her in a supporting role as Gabriella Grane. Television has also offered longer stretches, including Ran across three series of Ragnarok (2020). Her preference for naturalistic performance makes sense for stories in which trust can be dangerous.

In Saw X, costume designer Jimena Tenorio puts the clinic team in clinical whites, giving Lund's reassurance a practical visual backing. Nick Matthews's bleached, dusty Mexico City daylight provides a convincingly ordinary setting for the unease. We can see why her measured manner belongs here: it offers a credible point of contact before the horror takes over. The acting does not need to announce what sort of film this is. The title has attended to that.

The reservation is with how long Saw X keeps going once revenge becomes a lecture. Lund's composure is an asset, but it cannot supply the changes of pace the film needs, and Tobin Bell remains its centre. We would like to see more work that lets her authority develop through conversation, rather than relying on the threat around it. Try Saw X for her if this is your kind of horror, with a firm caveat about its patience-testing length.