Sometimes it's best not to think about or examine a film too closely - or at all. Banish all thoughts of spoilt child, age difference, all a girl needs is romance and marriage, endless cliché and so on.
Become an empty-headed female for the film’s duration and simply enjoy it for the pretty face and clothes, the older female co-star who inexplicably isn’t in anything else and notice how dirty and covered in pollution the Parisian buildings were in 1950s.
A wholesome joyous Swedish comedy and I could not love it more.
Exposed genitals at breakfast is an assertion of rights; the second best game for kids to play is ’torture’ - “My turn to be Pinochet” - and a kick-about with a football fixes everything and everybody. Because being “Together” is the answer.
Except of course it isn’t. Everyone in together is apart, separated in some way, misaligned, mis-communicating, missing out and all kinds of missing. It’s absurd, tragi-comic…
There are significant issues with structure, pacing and plot.
Yet I found it a satisfying watch due to styling, some committed performances, but mainly because I was in just the right (tired, Sunday night) mood for an unchallenging and pretty costume drama i.e. mindless, gentle, comforting trash with a hint of culture and quality.
Matthew Rhys turns in a brutal and memorable performance. There are some lovely clothes, catty exchanges and racy scenes on the main staircase of the family…
War, the elements, starvation, martyrdom, solidarity, survival, sacrifice, fear, acceptance, torment, mortality, comradeship, ascendency.
Who and how we are and become in the mounting face of own mortality. What is the price for conviction, conscience, survival? How do we reconcile ourselves with our choice? What is it to live and to die?
How many films and budgets and directors have launched themselves at these questions?
It took only one film, a small cast and less than two hours for a…
