Eine schöne Bescherung

I first saw this movie in Lund, Sweden. Me and my friend had planned to see something else but that sold out, so we picked this one instead. To be honest, we didn't have high hopes for it.

From the first scene, however, I was impressed with the excellent acting and how quickly and efficiently the backdrop of the story was being put together, without it seeming forced. We ended up laughing our faces off in the theatre, which has never happened to me before or after. This movie has it all - it's funny, it's touching, it's a little sad, and a very nice and unconventional Christmas story. What I especially love is how you sympathize with EVERY character, even though none of them can behave themselves. And again - the acting is really, really impressive.

My only point of criticism would be that the music is sometimes a touch sentimental, and that it's put under the images without much hindsight to its appropriateness. However, this is a very minor thing and I only noticed it while re-watching the movie in detail (I'm working on Dutch subtitles). By the way, the second, third and fourth time around, this movie does not disappoint :-)

You can recognize a U. S. comedy by the fact that nothing is realistic, that the world we are presented with consists either of pubescent adult men who do some nonsense while drunk or under the influence of other drugs, or hysterical young women for whom everything revolves around the one, great guy, preferably quarterback. European comedies are not necessarily good. But when they are good, they are simply better. I see that some don't like this Swedish film here and can understand why. For one thing, there's a lot of talk about traditional Swedish Christmas - and breaking with it - and for another, the dialogue is fast-paced and witty, so you may well miss a thing or two. Slapstick is used sparingly, it's more of a psychogram about a society that is a kind of tightrope act, sometimes tilting to one side, then to the other. I had a great time with all the politically incorrect remarks and side-swipes, and the film leaves nothing to be desired in terms of acting.

A good test of a "comedic" film is the laughter engendered in an audience. I have endured too many supposed comedies, where I have continually thought, "This isn't at all funny." I saw this film at a festival showing with about 900 people in the audience. Although the laughter was not constant, there were many, many occasions during the film, when one could not hear the lines of the actors, because there was such prolonged uproarious laughter in response to the preceding dialogue. I personally haven't laughed so much at film in a very long time.

It is a very charming Christmas story, featuring a very unusual (to an American) Christmas celebration involving extended families of two young gay men meeting for the first time. The acting is of the highest caliber. There are some pratfalls, but if they are humorous, it is not because someone slipped on a banana peel, but the circumstances leading up to the slip. Most of the humor is from the lines of the actors. Although the ending is predictable and perhaps formulaic, no audience would expect it to end a tragically, and comedy continues to the end.

I'm surprised I haven't seen this movie earlier, I absolutely loved it. Fun, chaotic and sweet. I would say this has all the characteristics of a typical Swedish Christmas! Well played by all involved and just brilliant. Thank you Helena

Just a typical swedish christmas movie. You have your politically correct story involving a family get-together consisting of your usual ensamble of half bad actors/actresses and bad attempts at something that I presume is supposed to be "humor". I don't know why they keep making the same movie with slight variations over and over. Very boring, predictable and frankly just embarrassing in-your-face political correctness. It seems sweden stopped even trying to make good movies around the year 2000. After that, it's all just clones of either this movie or Beck/Wallander/Salander/whatever.