On paper, story sounds like something out of a Pedro Almodovar pic, but it plays more like an old-fashioned Dogma movie with extra bells and whistles. Entirely set in a low-rent apartment block in an unnamed Danish city, pic starts with 32-year-old Charlotte (Trine Dyrholm, from "In Your Hands") moving into new digs, having decided she's dissatisfied with living with her long-term b.f. Kristian (Frank Thiel).

The owner of a successful beauty salon, attractive Charlotte has a brusque attitude toward sex. She soon starts bringing home men for no-strings bed romps and has no patience for post-coital chitchat. Hints are dropped that her "masculine" attitude toward relationships is a disguise for much deeper-seated insecurity and loneliness. 

Meanwhile, in the apartment directly below her, shy Veronica David Dencik), who was born Ulrik, lives with his scene-stealing mutt Miss Daisy. Veronica dresses as a woman and takes female hormones, but is waiting to be approved for gender-reassignment surgery. Her only visitors are her clucking, provisions-bearing mother (Elsebeth Steentoft), who hides the visits from her disapproving offscreen husband, and johns who pay for Veronica's skills as a dominatrix. Both neighbors can hear everything going on each other's homes through the thin floorboards.

Charlotte comes downstairs one day to ask Veronica to help move her bed, but offends her by openly acknowledging her as a man. Depressed by this and worried she'll be denied the operation, Veronica tries to take an overdose of pills, but Miss Daisy's whimpering summons Charlotte who gets Veronica to a hospital in time.

The two begin a prickly friendship, cemented when Veronica intervenes one night when Kristian comes over drunk and turns violent. Both Charlotte and Veronica are surprised to find themselves sexually drawn to one another.

Pic's title refers not just to fact that Veronica is an avid viewer of an imported, English-language soap opera, seemingly one made up for the movie, but also offers a self-deprecating comment on its own action.

Taking its cue from the conventions of the genre, film introduces periodic interludes in which a stentorian male voiceover recounts what's happened so far and flashes forward to scenes just about to happen, while images show black-and-white frame grabs from the action in "A Soap."

Tranquil inserts of the apartment block's exterior, glimpsed through a cumulus of cherry-blossom branches, act like the frequent establishing shots so beloved by conventional sudsers.

"A Soap" is first feature to emerge from Danish Film Institute's subsidy screen, New Danish Screen, set up to encourage helmers to be inventive. But, despite use of the soap-style breaks, pic's aesthetic seems fairly tame compared to works by other Scandi helmers, such as Danes Lars von Trier and Christoffer Boe, or Swede Lukas Moodysson.

But as common-or-garden realism, "Soap" works exceptionally well, handling what might sound like an outre setup with easy nonchalance. Pic's best moments are when its thesps seem to be doing the least acting -- padding around their houses, watching TV or talking casually -- while complex feelings simmer just under the surface. Another helmer might have made a more melodramatic meal out screenplay's material, but Christensen shows admirable circumspection and a gently humorous touch.

Helmer Christensen and d.p. Erik Molberg Hansen (who lensed Christensen's short "Habibti My Love") further emphasize realist texture by favoring natural-looking lighting that still modulates subtly to underscore moods.

Using color-rich Super 16 stock, Hansen has a steady enough arm to let handheld shots feel spontaneous and mobile without inducing motion sickness. Soft-spoken score by Magnus Jarlbo and Sebastian Oberg and theme tune Antony and the Johnsons adds metrosexual sophisticate flavor.

Camera (color, Super 16mm-to-35mm), Erik Molberg Hansen; editor, Asa Mossberg; music, Magnus Jarlbo, Sebastian Oberg; production designer, Rasmus Thjellesen; costume designer, Signe Sejlund; sound (Dolby) Rune Palving; casting, Djamila Hansen. Reviewed at Berlin Film Festival (competing), Feb. 10, 2006. Running time: 103 MIN.
(Danish, English dialogue)