Many years ago, when I was looking for god only knows what kind of movies (I thought it was movies based on true stories but apparently I was wrong), I stumbled upon We Are the Best! (Swedish: Vi är bäst!), added it to my watchlist and completely forgot about it. Now it has popped out again so I finally checked it out.
Set in 1980s Stockholm, the film tells the story of Bobo (Mira Barkhammar) and Klara (Mira Grosin), two 13-year-old tomboys who love punk. Sick of being told that punk is dead, they decide to form their own band. There's a problem though, they don't know how to play so they decide to ask another girl at school, Hedvig (Liv LeMoyne), who is not a punk but is still an outcast, to join them as she actually knows how to play.
And that's it for the plot. It's quite thin, as you can tell, but it's not a problem at all since We Are the Best! is a coming-of-age and coming-of-age movies don't need great plots to keep the audience interested and engaged.
To do that, you need solid and interesting characters and this film has them. Bobo is neglected by her single mother and pretty much ignored by everyone but her best friend Klara, and, for this reason, she ends up being a little self-centred. Klara tries to mask and hide her insecurities and vulnerabilities behind a tough look --the Mohawk you can see in the poster and punky clothes. The most interesting by far though is Hedvig. She is the one that grows the most in the film, as the friendships with Bobo and Klara lead her to question "her" values --it's actually Hedvig's mother who imposed her values and beliefs into her. In spite of her changes, she still manages to stay true to herself. It's truly a shame that the film focuses more on Bobo and Klara than Hedvig. It's a different story for the adult characters though, they are shallow to say the least.
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| Svensk Filmindustri |
Surprisingly good are the performances from the leading trio. Mira Barkhammar, Mira Grosin and Liv LeMoyne all give such natural and realistic performances, it doesn't feel like they are acting.
All of that being said, We Are the Best! didn't work that well for me. There's something about it that just was off for me. It wasn't as charming as it was supposed to be, it was often dull and you don't really learn anything from it, whether it is what's like to be a teenager or a punk.
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