SHOW ME LOVE

SHOW ME LOVE (FUCKING ÅMÅL) (1998) ***1/2

Reviewed 10/18/99

Unfortunately retitled from Fucking Åmål to the more maudlin Show Me Love for U.S. release, this was both the most popular and critically lauded film in Sweden last year. It swept the Guldbagge Awards, Sweden's version of the Oscars, winning Lukas Moodysson awards for writing and directing in his feature film debut. The two leads shared best actress honors as well. That the film is a not very original teenage lesbian romantic comedy really says something about Sweden. What exactly, I'm not sure, but it gets my admiration. It's certainly hard to imagine a film with this subject matter winning the Oscar or becoming one of the highest grossing films of all time in the U.S. Show Me Love may be derivative, but there is something to be said of taking an old formula and making the best darn movie you can with it, and Show Me Love is one of the most charming teenage romances this critic has ever seen.

The story revolves around Agnes, the school outcast, and Elin, a popular girl, in the small town of Åmål. Agnes' mother throws her a 16^th birthday party against her will, and on a lark, Elin and her older sister Jessica show up. As Agnes is rumored to be a lesbian, Jessica bets Elin that she won't give Agnes a kiss. Elin does, not knowing that Agnes has had a long-time crush on her. The kiss has a profound and traumatic effect on both girls.

While we're in deep John Hughes territory here, Moodysson gives Show Me Love a level of authenticity that Hughes never even approached. Unlike in Hughes' films, we never feel like what we are seeing is how adults think teenagers act. The banal cruelty and ludicrous naivete among Moodysson's adolescents ring true. The boys compare the size of their cell phones while the girls discuss their future occupations without any sense of what they’re really talking about. Moodysson also utilizes an extremely grainy stock and controlled handheld camera movement that contributes a cinema verité feel to the film. (This is however counteracted by the obviously artificial genre conventions the film sticks to.)

Moodysson is also helped immeasurably by Rebecca Liljeberg as Agnes and Alexandra Dahlström as Elin. Unlike in the U.S. where actors are usually much older than the teenage characters they play, both actors here were actually about the ages of the characters when the film was shot, that being 16 and 14 years old, respectively. Both actors are excellent. Liljeberg, looking like a cross between Katie Holmes and the young Anna Paquin, is too beautiful to be a school reject, but her Agnes emotes just the right amount of romantic melancholy. In a touch typical of Moodysson throughout the film, he has Agnes put on Albinoni's Adagio while contemplating suicide with a disposable shaver. The blond Dahlström plays Elin with a passion for excitement that has no outlet in bland Åmål. As such, she is constantly agitated and we feel like she's always on the verge of exploding. Elin is so desperate for experience that she'll take heartburn pills hoping to get high. Dahlström also gives Elin a funny idiosyncratic growl everytime something goes wrong in her life.

Another plus for the film is that the parents are not adult caricatures completely alien to what it's like to be young. Though Agnes' father doesn't completely understand what his daughter is going through, he is compassionate and consoling as wonderfully played by Ralph Carlsson. Show Me Love only stumbles when Moodysson engages in some gratuitous male-bashing and in the contrived fairy tale ending. Yet one cannot help but feel the characters deserve it.