Fucking Åmål

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.

Director Lukas Moodysson's Show Me Love is an eerily accurate commentary on 1990s teenagers in small-towns in Sweden. In fact, it's accurate almost to the point of being mistaken for Reality. It is above all other things a love story, exploring the relationship of two closet-lesbians girls at a modern High School. Many people thought Show Me Love was worth checking out for its bizarre premise alone, but only a few minutes into the movie you can tell that it is one of the most grounded, realistic portrayals in European cinema.

The dialog, for one, is fantastically realistic and blunt and this makes Show Me Love a very subtle film; it shows things exactly the way they are, down to the very recognizable expressions that the teenagers use and the awkwardness of interacting at that age. It criticizes stereotypes and socioeconomic classes and makes a point without preaching and this is something that is extremely rare in Hollywood cinema and that you can perhaps appreciate more in international films.

The film is not devoid of High School stereotypes, but they are much more subtle than you'd find in the average, American mainstream high school flick. There is no distinct jock, no perfect prom-queen and no nerd. Instead you have the seemingly popular girl, Elin (Alexandra Dahlström), who in fact struggle with many things, including her sexuality and somewhat Emo (although the term "Emo" wasn't coined yet) girl, Agnes, who is anything but popular and has mountains of worries. These two teenagers find a connection and an attraction that is entirely inappropriate. They fall in love.

Elin and Agnes are extremely likable characters; Elin despite her constant need for attention and her popular status, and Agnes despite her sometimes whiny depression. What they have in common is that they're both fundamentally lonely young girls who are fed up with their places in life, and in Åmål—("Why do we have to live here?") probably the most boring city in Scandinavia.

Show Me Love is one of my favorite movies for its simplicity. No fancy editing, no effects, no flashy lightning or anything even remotely out-of-place. In this sense, it follows many rules of Dogme 95 film-making. It just stays true to the gloomy, boring, small town that is Åmål. But don't let this scare you off, because this is not a depressing movie – it is a delightful and warming film with heart.

I'm usually impervious to teen movies. I just can't get beyond the usual moaning, complaining and whining. I find it too much to bear, especially from people who don't have to work for a living, who still have their parents looking after them and who are incapable of expressing themselves properly. I, for one, a pauper scumbag languishing in the job market, would love to have their inconsequential problems. But if I take myself back to my school days then I can just about find humanity enough to sympathise. My teenage years weren't tough – I actually really rather enjoyed school – but I know how it feels to grow up not knowing what you want from life and where you're going. It's certainly a confusing time.

So it's perhaps because of that that I enjoy Show Me Love. It's depiction of teenage years feels genuine and honest and I can relate to most of it. As opposed to Hollywood teen films where all the girls are strikingly gorgeous, the boys are ripped and everyone goes around driving cars and doing designer drugs. My school days weren't like that at all. They were much more like Moodysson's film where the girls wear bad make-up, the boys are hopeless with the opposite sex and where a crushing air of mediocrity hangs in the atmosphere. Everything seems hopeless.

But despite that, my adolescence was pretty smooth sailing. There were no great trails or tribulations. Which is perhaps why I find it so hard to relate to teenagers. Not once did I want to kill myself and I never spent any time pining for a girl (lusting, yeah, but love never entered my mind). So to me their problems always seem rather…pathetic. But because Show Me Love depicts adolescence so genuinely, with all its awkwardness and idiocy, I can't help but like it.

What rings most true is the sheer incompetence of boys around girls. At that age, most of the males of the species are hopeless with the opposite sex. They haven't a clue. And so the terrible compliments ('Jesus you're beautiful') and bone-headed chat-up attempts are rather amusing. Johan, in particular, with his awful bike and terrible baseball cap is subject of the most laughs. He's Amal in physical form. A dead end. And Markus, the other boy, is no better. He knows nothing about women either. In fact, the boys are more comfortable with each other. They'd rather spend time measuring mobile phones. Only with mobile phones, small is best. Inverse penis measuring, anyone?

And the sheer awfulness of a lot of the girls also rings a bell. I don't know her name, but the girl with the miniscule eyebrows (which makes her look rather sinister and perpetually shocked) reminds me of a lot of horrible girls at school. Girls who were experts in making other people's lives a misery. And then there's the handicapped girl. Agnes is unfortunate enough to be friends with her, even though she doesn't like her. Those friendships are the worst – friendships born entirely of convenience and without a shred of genuine affection. Nothing is more suffocating. But as in real life, such friendships are hard to get out of. You may not particularly like the person, you may have nothing in common and you may have nothing to say to one another, but at school to be alone is to be exposed. It's better to have someone in your corner – anyone. And it's especially hard to get out of the friendship if someone has a disability. You feel obliged to make them certain concessions. So therefore it's quite shocking, yet understandable, that Agnes lashes out at the girl and that the girl takes it the way she does. However, the disabled girl's attempts to get back at Agnes and curry favour with the rest of her classmates make me squirm. I saw many such incidents myself at school.

Less convincing, however, and it's a major reservation, is the sincerity of Elin's feelings towards Agnes. I just can't help but feel that it's a passing thing. Sure she may be a lesbian or bisexual, but I can't quite decide whether she does actually love Agnes – I completely believe in Agnes' feelings. She just seems to flit too often from one person or to one thing. There's one bit where's she checking to see what's cool and what's not cool. Is this her way of getting back? Is this her way of giving her life excitement? I'm not sure. When I first saw it I was more dubious, but now that I've watched it a couple more times I'm more willing to give the film the benefit of the doubt. I mean, Elin does reach the film's conclusion and her own conclusion rather haphazardly, but in that moment she does seem completely honest. And the ending, when they literally come out of the closet, is a great moment (although perhaps a little glib. I can't bear to think what they'd have to put up with afterwards and whether their fledgling relationship would survive).

But still, even if I'm not 100% sure of Elin's feelings, it still manages to be a rather beguiling film. And this is mostly down to Rebecca Liljeberg's performance as Agnes. As I've already said, most teens I don't really care about, but Agnes is an exception. She's a smart girl with good parents but who still feels miserable. But despite this, her character is never annoying and never seems selfish. She just wants what everyone wants. She wants to be happy and she wants to feel normal. And because she goes through such an understandable range of emotions during the course of the film, and because her angst seems so genuine and deeply felt, I can't help but love the end of the film.

This movie has most of the things that a typical teen movie always has: archetype characters, feel-good ending, a huge score to reinforce emotional response.

But it does it much better from the acting (not Disney robots), to the cast (not all perfect beatiful people, just normal people), to the score and script and dialogue.

It is very good and very likeable and sweet (I watched it 10/15 years ago and I still remember a lot of it and how I felt after watching it).

If you believe that movies can change or really add something to make you look at life and its challenges in a different way, this movie is undoubtedly one of those which do change things! Unlike the most other movies FA moves in a mostly pure and true way. There's barely heart-melting music to evoke emotions, but strong intensity. Watching the movie, you want it to go on forever, and when it's over, you nevertheless feel perfect happiness because you've witnessed life as it is: wonderful, sad, funny and challenging. The scene when the girls want to go to Stockholm is one of the most wonderful scenes I've ever seen. An absolutely cold atmosphere and the chilly night seem to have expelled life from this little city in the middle of nowhere, but the glances of Elin and Agnes and their few words are as alive as possible. The few seconds in the car are as if they had already succeeded in getting out of their emotional misery, as if they were in Stockholm, and yet the surroundings are still the same, the same unbearable cold light and the same endless darkness beyond the street. It's not the spot that is different, but the girls themselves. For a moment they feel the enormous strength of life and love. For a moment they know where they belong to. For a moment everything is perfect. I'm in love with that scene. Sometimes words can be beautiful, sometimes authors strike divine chords, sometimes painters create mystery and dreams, but only movies can unite movements and words, glances and silence. A smile and the hurting silence, one single word spoken with the glance of love. Movies can have such an incredible power, but rarely do they get by using it. FA does! It changes, maybe it changes things of which I didn't even know they exist, there's possibly not even a word to name them. This movie is just pure, and no rational explanation or critic can keep up with its emotional intensity. Don't understand it, love it!