Count Me Out

Simply a good movie. Story: a 10 year-old girl (Bergthora Aradottir as 'Sofie') realises that her father is not abroad, as her mother has always told her, but simply has left her mother and lives with another woman. She decides to look him up and confront him, with the help from her best friend (Freydis Kristofersdottir as 'Yrsa'). This leads to complications such as the kidnapping of Sofie's half-sister. This movie is exciting, the story doesn't leave you bungling somewhere. Every time you think, where do we go from here?, the director takes you along some path which seems logical but not predictable. The two main characters play their parts exceedingly well, with Aradottir as the doubting and sensitive one yearning for recognition and Kristofersdottir as the more streetwise(-ish) tomboy. Real emotions are displayed and the drama is never too thick. It's quite amazing how well these children act. There's more balance between Aradottir and Kristofersdottir than for example in a comparable film like "Selma and Johanna" (Sweden, 1997), where it is sort of lacking. The movie is quite realistic, it is only unrealistic in the fact that it IS a movie, for children at that. Only at the end one gets the feeling that they ran out money or time.