Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz

It's Jens Jonsson's first full-length feature film, known in Sweden primarily for his shorts and TV commercials. Jonsson's the writer (along with cowriter Hans Gunnarsson) and director of this overlong but intelligently offbeat coming-of-age/family drama that veers between tragedy (childhood is a time of misery) and droll geek black comedy, never settling on which form is the dominant one. It channels the same misery of childhood as Lasse Hallstrom’s "My Life As A Dog." Its deliberately leisure pace leaves many icy spots in its storytelling, though it's stylishly shot in a glacial manner and the snow covered ground and light faded pastel interiors of the houses of its northern Swedish setting are mesmerizing (the cinematography by Norwegian Askild Edvardsen is good enough to keep me intently watching something I could never get that interested in). It impressed the festival judges enough to win both the World Cinema Dramatic Jury and Cinematography awards at the Sundance Film Festival.

It features the chubby stoical junk food addicted nerdy black haired 16-year-old Rille (Jerry Johansson) and his lean blonde athletic 13-year-old brother Erik (Hampus Johansson), who have opposite physical appearances and personalities. They are competitive, fight a bit, but generally get along in a loving relationship. Outsider Rille is bullied by the older boys because of his overweight and passivity, and just takes his lumps without complaint. Rille can do only one thing really well—play ping pong. He's proclaimed as "the king of ping pong" since he could beat all the other kids, including his kid brother, in the youth center where he's in charge of the game (keeper of the locker keys) and runs the game like a tyrant. 

The brothers live with their grossly obese ineffectual mother (Ann-Sofie Nurmi), who is trying to start a hairdressing salon from her home. Mom's new boyfriend is sports store owner Gunnar (Frederik Nilsson), a milquetoast who their estranged robust fun-loving dad Georgi Staykov) considers a smug moralist. Their dad works for the Americans as either an oil rig worker or deep-sea diver (proclaiming that "those damn Americans do whatever they want, no matter what the world thinks!"), and when in town while the boys are on their spring break enjoys taking the boys out for some adventures—which because of his ineptitude and drunkenness usually wind up misguided activities, though he's kind-hearted and means well he's nevertheless still a screw-up. 

The film's comedy goes into a snow bank when the dark family secrets are revealed, as Rille overhears mom talking with Gunnar about him being the father of Erik. Rille doesn't know how to handle this new information and when he blurts it out to Erik, even though mum said not to, it sets the brothers off into a bitter feud that both are not mature enough to handle and their dysfunctional family is of little help in correcting the situation.

Things fall apart for Jonsson after the first half of the film's winning efforts of drawing comedy out of the sibling rivalry and the amusing dopey ways of the dysfunctional family. Jonsson unwisely eschews comedy for the climactic darker dramatic moments that never get to anything that revealing and only seem to throw the easygoing quirky mood of the film off-kilter into a heavy-handed unconvincing forced resolvement.

REVIEWED ON 1/17/2009       GRADE: B-

Dennis Schwartz: "Ozus' World Movie Reviews"

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