Site Presented By
Monday, Nov 9, 2009
In Sweden, this little film about lesbian teenagers was as big as "Titanic."
Oct 19, 1999 | I love seeing lesbian couples walking down the street. Gay couples too. I'm happy for anybody who can walk around holding their honey's hand. When I see gay couples holding hands it's a reminder of how not too long ago it wasn't cool for gay people to show affection in public (still isn't in lots of places), and a reminder that when you're trying just to be thought of as a human being, the smallest victories feel like huge ones.
Maybe that has something to do with why gay teenagers are especially touching. There's nothing tougher when you're a teenager than admitting what guy or girl you've got the hots for. Think of how much tougher that is for gay kids. One of the nicest things about the teen comedies that have turned out to be such sweet-tempered surprises this year, pictures like "American Pie" and "10 Things I Hate About You," has been watching the characters hold their heads up as they pursue the objects of their affection across the lines of the cliques and the false divisions that high school imposes. But none of those comedies has featured a gay character. Gay teens have been pretty much consigned to indie films and foreign films, and many of those, like the new Swedish picture, "Show Me Love," just don't have the exuberance of the mainstream teen movies.
"Show Me Love," which was reportedly almost as big a hit as "Titanic" in Sweden, isn't a good movie. It's drab, visually ugly and a little pokey. You keep waiting for the kids to bust through the overlay of suburban boredom instead of being weighed down by it. (The much better original Swedish title, "Fucking Emel," refers to the characters' town and tells you exactly how they feel about it.) But the two heroines are so recognizable as real girls, and the young actresses who play them are so appealing, that you keep rooting for these kids.
Sixteen-year-old Agnes (Rebecca Liljeberg) is one of those quiet kids, a reader whose label as a strange plain jane keeps everyone, including her, from seeing that she's beautiful. Her straight hair parted in the middle and her high forehead might be camouflage for all the longing that radiates from her clear, steady gaze and for the sensuality of her bee-stung lips. She's the kind of kid who might still feel like an outsider even if she weren't in love with another girl in her school. After two years in Emel, Agnes hasn't made any friends, something her mother refuses to accept. She's determined to throw Agnes a sweet-16 party, though Agnes is certain no one will show up. About the only person who does is Elin (Alexandra Dahlstrvm), the classmate on whom Agnes has a crush.
Like Agnes, Elin is one of those kids whose reputation is based on the way she looks. Blond and voluptuous, she's assumed to have slept with lots of boys, though she's only kissed her fair share. (When one boy expresses interest in Elin to his buddy, the guy tells him she is used goods.) Elin has more energy than she knows what to do with, though it all seems to get snuffed out by the tedium of her town. When we see her in class with her head on her desk, she looks bored enough to cry.
Writer-director Lukas Moodysson is smart about the artificiality of high school alliances. Elin hangs out with her crowd because, like her, they're the attractive, cool kids she's expected to hang with. (Just as Agnes pretends to be friends with the wheelchair-bound girl who, like her, has no other friends.) But one look at Elin with them tells you they bore her as much as anything else. When Elin and Agnes start to talk the night of Agnes' disastrous birthday party, they make a connection. In some way, Agnes stabilizes Elin, and Elin imparts some of her what-
