Four More Years

This is a story about love between two men, one is a right wing and the other is a left wing politician. It's a new stage but the same story we've seen many times before. And the directing by Tova Magnusson-Norling is nothing to applaud.

Björn Kjellman and Eric Ericson are both good actors, but there is a lack of chemistry between them.

This can be a good film for the everyday-family who doesn't want to see too much of a love story between two men. But if you want to see a movie with more depth and a movie who dare to show more of the sexual nature between homosexuals, then this is not the right movie.

Four More Years is the lighthearted and charming story of a forty-something Swedish politician named David, the leader of a political party, whose wife Fia is his chief aide and adviser.

In the aftermath of a disastrous election, which instead of making him Prime Minister as expected loses his party almost all its influence in parliament, David falls in love with Martin, a younger, openly gay leader of the opposition party that trounced David's in the election. (The movie was directed by the actress who plays Fia.) There follows an Adam's Rib sort of dilemma, with lovers on opposite sides of a professional matter of great importance to both - in addition to David's anxiety over coming out as gay.

Americans will have a hard time believing politicians of opposing parties ANYWHERE can treat each other with unfailing mild-mannered courtesy, but it may well be true that Swedish politicians actually are civilized human beings, unlike the snarling savages who dominate American politics.

And gay American men may not recognize the intensity of the passion between David and Martin. I think the two guys are very sexy, both individually and together, but viewers conditioned by the hairless twenty-something gym bunnies and feral copulation that distinguish American gay movies will find these two men unattractive.

Anybody looking for fireworks - either political or sexual - will be disappointed in this movie; but as a look at how civilized, mature (but not old) gay men with serious interests outside of themselves might behave, Four More Years is a revelation and a welcome breath of fresh air in the world of gay movies.

All the performances are good, the dialog is intelligent, the story is not as predictable as it could be, and there are some very entertaining supporting characters - particularly David's mother and Martin's father. I enjoyed the movie enough to watch it again right now.

This is more drama than comedy but it does have it's comic moments. Mostly it's a drama about forbidden love and self discovery set against the backdrop of Swedish politics.

Björn Kjellman is great as the politician who gets lost when his political career is floundering and finds that most of what he thought his life was about is false. If you are uncomfortable with men kissing you may want to give this a pass, but there is no gratuitous nudity or sex.

All in all it was a surprisingly good understated comedy that is a great way to spend 90 minutes.

I turned this movie off about 10 times, but forced myself to finish it, although I don't know why.

If you have a strong knowledge of Sweden and Swedish politics, you may find this film enjoyable. But if you do not, then you may be bored out of your skull.

The person who created this must have thought it was an absolutely brilliant idea to have two politicians from opposite sides of the coin, one closeted, married gay, and one out gay, fall in love with each other.

On paper, that probably looked good. But on the screen, it was basically a well-shot endless chat fest with tons of mismatched music.

The movie is supposed to be a "comedy" -- although the subtitles made sense in English, I think I only laughed once. So, again, perhaps in Swedish, this movie is hysterically funny.

Well shot, but there is nothing that is really engaging. It's hard to relate to a single person in the entire film and it seems to be a series of endless dinners of meeting, sexing, breaking up, making up, wash and repeat.

I gave it 4 stars because it was shot fairly cleanly and some scenes looked very good and obviously there was some money spent on this. Story-wise, though, I'm sorry; it just doesn't work, at least it didn't for me.