Show Me Love

No review content available.

Agnes is a friendless and insecure teenager who's move to a new town (the small and insignificant Amal) has made it even harder for her to have friends. Her only friend is a girl in a wheelchair who she acknowledges is only her friend because they have nobody else. But Agnes is secretly in love with Elin, a beautiful blonde who feels trapped in the small town and seeks any excitement she can get in the form of drinking, boys or drugs. An attempt by Elin and her sister to show up Agnes results in Elin and Agnes spending some time together and kissing. However being teenagers nothing is ever simple – especially not when it is an adult relationship in a small town. Although I was a little concerned by the fact that Moodysson would have picked two gorgeous 'lesbian' teenage girls to be his subjects in his film about teenage angst I still wanted to give this film the chance on the basis of getting a feel for his work. The plot is light on actual specific action but is well written to be full of realistic emotions, difficulties and dialogue. Having just seen the film Thirteen and recognising a lot of that from my own teenage period (although not to that extreme!) I was glad that I was able to see emotions etc that will be familiar to many here. The fact that the lesbian thing is writ so large across it is not so much a concern as a cause for question. I suppose I shouldn't question why he chose these characters (they have as much validity as 'straight' characters) but at times it does feel like he has an unnatural (or natural for a man I suppose) interest in them because of their sexuality, however he never lets it become the focus over the wider teenage issues. In terms of direction, he has a natural movement to the camera but not to the point where it is obtrusive to the story. A major part of the film working well is down to the natural and convincing cast, especially the lead two. Dahlstrom gets most of the headlines of course because she is blonde and sexually overt for the majority of the film; her performance is good but for my money the praise should go mostly to the more interesting performance from Liljeberg. Beautiful but playing painfully sad, Liljeberg makes a convincing teenager in this situation and it is her character that we are drawn into recognising – certainly for me I identify more with a shy outsider rather Elin's popular party type. The support is pretty good and all come across as real people (I'm not sure if some of them were non-professionals but they still were mostly good). Overall this is a good but fairly unremarkable film. I don't mean that as a criticism, I just didn't think it stood out from the crowd to the point where it has been hyped as much as it is (probably the title has something to do with that), although it is certainly good enough to be considered as one of the better teenage movies around. Not a great deal happens but the general emotions, situations and dialogue will mostly be fairly recognisable regardless of the sexuality, and these are well delivered by a natural and convincing cast, in particular good turns from Dahlstrom and Liljeberg in the lead roles.

This movie makes me wanna pass out!!! The people who like this piece of "film" only like it because they can relate to their own sad lives. I don't think that the director put in so much work in this one. And the actors/actresses oh man don't get me started they got acting abilities that reminds me of The General Hospital crew, beacuse they don't act they're just themselves. This movie casts a dark shadow over such great swedish movies as the Seventh seal by Ingmar Bergman. I don't see how Sweden is ever going to recover this darkest era in it's movie history. (Check out some great danish movies instead, like "The Celebration".

This is the movie I've been waiting over 30 years to see. Although it takes place in a small town in Sweden it could have been a small town in Pennsylvania, where I spent the majority of my teenage years. Growing up gay in a small town is obviously a different experience for everyone but for most people it's not a time that conjures up joyous memories. Although Sweden is considered to be a more tolerant country, having spent a year there as an exchange student I didn't feel any more comfortable about being gay there than in Pennsylvania. It wasn't until several years after living there that I finally came out and telling my Swedish friends was just as difficult as it was telling anyone else. I say this not for those who have seen the film but for those who haven't and might not because they may be put off by foreign films. Although I was once fluent in Swedish and always enjoy hearing it spoken, I've unfortunately forgotten enough that I relied heavily on the subtitles just as most people will. I've watched it twice in three days and will watch it many times more because it's the first movie about gay teens that left me with a smile on my face and a warmth in my heart. The teens in this movie have it better than I did but not unrealistically so. It's true and honest and very real. It's not easy being a teenager but it's too often unbearble being a gay teenager. This movie captures the essence of what it is to be a teenager, gay or straight. For gay teens I hope it will give you hope and show that you're not so different. For straight teens I hope you'll see that we're not so different.