Show Me Love

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.

I don't understand why this movie has got such a big positive attention!!!! It's really awful! Bad! Boring! The story is to dry, and the actress is too rigid! This movie wasn't very good, I've seen it many times. and it's become worse and worse every time i see it. Don't see this movie, and spare some headache!

I can´t believe what I am reading! I usually don´t comment movies, especially when I don´t like them, but for this movie I have to make an exception. At first I have to say, I live in Sweden, and I do not like this place to put it in mild terms, so Swedish movies in general scare the living daylights out of me. People outside of Sweden probably can´t understand the media-hype that surrounded the release of this film, and it was #1 at the box office for months and months. Now I have avoided this film for the above mentioned reasons, until tonight when it was aired on TV. And what I saw was far worse than I could ever have imagined. Lukas Moodyson shoots as if he was filming with a homevideo camera! And those quick zooms! HOW is it possible to make a film look less professional? Now Sweden is a gay-liberal,socialist society, so I can understand why the story of two young lesbians, with suicidal intentions ect ect, (and I must add that Sweden has the highest suicidal rate in the world according to population) hit the heart of Sweden, but how can people from Canada, Australia, USA amongst others, relate to this film!? It amazes me! In every Swedish teenage flick, we have to suffer socialisticly twisted plots, about poor teens in the suburbs with alcoholic parents and drug problems ect ect, and I sadly have to report to those of you who thought otherwise, that this is the most cliché approach one can express in a Swedish film. Moodysson doesnt change that perspective very much, just feeds it more, and all of Sweden applauds it since he also chose to portay a cute little lesbian couple aswell. Moodyson is now, after 1 movie (!) considered in Sweden as the new Ingmar Bergman, actually I can understand why, its just the thought horrifies me deeply. The main resaon so many Swedes relate to this film, is that over 80% over the population lives is such small dreadful places as Åmål, and teens in these towns have nothing else to do but hang outside the hotdog-stand and drink alcohol, and have casual sexual encounters with each other, so surely I can understand why so many relate to it. I only wonder, should´nt there be more to life? Should´nt people WANT more out of life? In Sweden, the answer is. NO.

This is not a very good movie, in my humble opinion, though it desperately tries to be. The acting is mostly fair and the script is only average. It has some memorable scenes but to call the movie "real" would be pushing it. However, it has put small-town life on the map when it comes to teenagers, which feels somewhat fresh and interesting.

I'd got negative feedback from my friends concerning this movie. They said it was disappointing and that it did not live up to the hype. I couldn't disagree more. I thought it was beautiful. The way Moodyson captured the essence of the movie I thought was stunning. It's all about love. They being lesbians made it even more compelling IMO. I was stunned by the greatness of the movie. I hadn't hoped for much, but I could recognize myself in the movie. Agnes' parents were masterfully portrayed. Her mother was just that too caring and annoying. Her father was the "American" voice of reason, but the way Agnes reacted to him was IMO realistic. I loved the movie, and thought it was one of the best movies I've ever seen. If it wasn't, I wouldn't have been wasting my time at 5am writing about it. That's probably the greatest compliment I can give it. I think I've fallen in love with the protagonists. :-) Neuf points. Not many movies make my cry -and- laugh at he same time. This one did.

This is a beautiful movie. It is about a girl with no friends, Agnes. It is also about a girl with lots of friends, Elin. Both are not happy. They live in the boring place called Åmål. The parents of Agnes throw her a birthday party and no one is coming accept her 'friend'. She is her friend because they both have no friends. At the same time Elin and her sister Jessica are going to another party. Elin says she wants to go to Agnes her party and have some laughs over there. We know her real reason. Agnes is in love with Elin and when Elin and Jessica arrive Elin kisses her. It was a bet, but Agnes doesn't know that. Later on Elin apologizes and they end up having a real kiss. Elin will call Agnes. What will happen from there I will not reveal. This is a very true movie about teenagers having difficulties about their emotions. It is not come cliché story mostly made in Hollywood where teenagers are just stupid tools for some laughs and cries. This movie is very funny and touching in an honest way. We care about most of the characters because they are trying the best they can. Elin played by Alexandra Dahlström and Agnes played by Rebecka Liljeberg give warm performances. They are both very lovely and although Elin does some mean things you will not hate her for it. You know she has some problems herself, she is not happy and she must learn how to deal with that. In Sweden this film had more visitors than Titanic and in my opinion it deserved that.

I watched this with my girlfriend, who said it was one of the best love stories she had ever seen - I tend to agree. I am not usually a fan of love stories, preferring a good zombie flick, but this one transcended the genre by showing emotion and motivation of the characters in such an interesting way that you couldn't help but sympathize with them. I confess that my motivations for watching it were rather base; I heard that it was about teenage Swedish lesbians, and thought that was a subject I would certainly like to explore in more depth. On the one hand, there are none of the explicit scenes I was hoping for; on the other hand, I got into the movie so much I didn't miss them. Fans of love stories, teenage angst, girl power and anything related will definitely like this movie. Other people will like it too, you'll just have to talk them into watching it. It would certainly make a good date movie, or just one to provoke discussion and romance.

This movie is now (2008) history, but at the time it came out was a big hit, so when it was shown on TV I decided to see why. And after having watched it, I still have to understand why. As most people would know, it is the story of two girls living in a small town in Sweeden. They are bored to death because nothing happens in their village and so they do the only thing teenagers can do well: fall in love and act melodramatically OTT. The fact that they are supposed to be lesbians just adds a touch of dirtiness to an otherwise boring movie. However, none of this mattered, because I was constantly distracted by the worst photography EVER. You get no chance to take a glimpse of the horrible village because the camera is forever zooming on the faces of the actors, giving a claustrophobic feeling of lack of space. You see nothing but big, huge faces and if it was bad on TV, it must have been a lot worst at the cinema. Eventually, it was almost comical to see these big heads talking and moving on the screen, with no relation to their bodies and to the other actors around them. Finally, the character of the dark-haired girl (whose name I forgot, because I honestly could not care less about this movie) is so hysterically selfish that I was hoping she would manage to get through with her suicide and remove her miserable self from the scene - but unfortunately no such luck and we are left with the two lesbian walking away hand in hand towards their boring future.