Quando Acaba a Inocência

I like European coming-of-age flicks because usually they are refreshingly cliche-free and truthful. "Friends Forever" starts like that but unfortunately lets itself down with some unrealistic about-faces in its characterisation.

Kristian is a shy boy who starts school in Copenhagen and is soon befriended by Henrik, a mature nonconformist who practices tai chi and astronomy. However, Henrik is believed to be gay by the other students in the class, particularly roughneck Patrick, so Kristian distances himself from him.

Kristian becomes fast friends with Patrick and his gang when, in one horrible scene, he helps the lad set on a poor girl in class and rip her top off. Kristian is further surprised, however, to find that Patrick is gay, and is in a relationship with an older man. Meanwhile, he sees an ageing female pop singer in a nightclub, and makes the hard-to-swallow decision to begin a sexual relationship with her, despite her being at least thirty years older than him, and looking it.

The girl who he humiliated tells him to "forget about the sweater thing", and starts a relationship with him too, despite the fact that when we last saw her she was struggling to cover herself, shrieking and crying and running out of the room, humiliated and traumatised.

He's also shocked to his core by his friend's homosexuality, shaking and crying that "it's not normal, nobody else is like you guys"... but yeah, you guessed it, does a pretty quick turnaround on that one.

The movie begins fairly realistically but ends up going for a quick, unbelievable resolution, and even ends with a musical routine. Shame, it could have been better.

Similar in theme to A Beautiful Thing, Wild Reeds, and Get Real in that all four of these films deal with the turmoil of a gay male teenager coming to terms with his (homo)sexuality.

This movie has a funny and campy ending.

This is an adorable film full of the charm and high spirits of youth. There are few shadows here and those are dealt with with confident irony, for what is youth but implied optimism? It is amazing how different the point of view is from what an American or English film might be: ambient negativity is not assumed; the boys' gayness is not an automatic ticket to trials and stress. That isn't the point at all. Their discovery of love, of their own sexual energy and of the life-enhancing qualities of friendship/comradeship is just as buoyant and just as magical as that of anyone else: wonderfully positive without ever being sugary.

The chemistry of this movie is just not that common and I would LOVE to see it on DVD. **And I now have!**

I first saw it in general release in NYC when I was 14.

Intrepid, prophetic, dramatic and amusing. This is a Scandinavian film treasure telling us a lot about the sexual discoveries, questions and insecurities, keeping the friendship as the most important matter. A free of taboos artwork offering an amazing view on the progressive, friendly and open Danish society of the 80s.

Definitely one of the best and pioneer movies about teens and homosexuality complemented with a gorgeous music background.