Gossip

Glancing at the cast, my expectations were rightly sky-high, considering this film is a who's who of famous Swedish actors of the early 2000s. Talented director Colin Nutley has somewhat of a reputation of mixing very good films with complete disasters, and has also been subject to criticism because of his obvious nepotism by constantly casting his wife, Helena Bergström, in virtually all of his movies.

Naturally she is cast here as well, together with Sweden's acting elite. The performances are very strong throughout, I would like to single out the performances of Lena Endre, Mikael Persbrandt, Peter Haber, Suzanne Reuter and Marika Lagercrantz as a notch above the rest. The rest of the cast performs admirably as well, and the casting really works.

The main problem is the terrible source material. Since there are so many characters, there needs to be some element holding it all together, but it is lacking and it shows in a painful way, as the story lacks focus. Though some of the characters feel interesting and have a certain depth, the movie still feels superficial, and that's strange for a two-hour-movie. In addition to that, too many of the characters are hard to like, and it is hard to really connect. What saves the movie somewhat is the superb quality of the acting, but still it is not nice to see such talented actors being so sadly let down by the material.

I have seen this movie because I have heard this is "the new Swedish wave", "this is the hope for Swedish cinema". Well, if this is supposed to be hope for the Swedish cinema, then Swedish cinema is pretty hopeless. The movie is about problems of actors, lots of extremely boring dialogs about art, blah, blah, blah - a really depressing "commedy" movie that is supposed to be enjoyable or even funny. I have not found anything funny at all. Nothing much happens and absolutely nothing matters. 100% boring movie in is purest form. It probably requires some northern Europe genome in your blood to be enjoyed, I really do not understand how anyone be amused by something like this. Avoid it at any cost to save 2 hours in your life for something that really matters...

I loved this movie. As noted in the summary, it's about several women who all hope to be cast in the re-make of the Greta Garbo Swedish historical film, Queen Christina--this is the circumstance that provides the tension/motor for the film. And then what it is is a great entertainment involving interlocking stories in the lives of these women, much of it quite funny. Most of them appear to be over 45, which makes it especially enjoyable for grownups--a story with loads of energy and intensity about women who are past their youth.

Or drama drama ... and more drama. Now maybe you've never been behind the scenes of a movie set, but you don't have to be to understand what is going on here. The people here are just like you and me ... well maybe they have certain things heightened, like jealousy and envy ... at least in some regards.

So we know what they go through, whether we agree with how they deal with certain issues that arise due to their behaviour or not. A decent little movie that can ... nothing more and nothing less I'd say.

Well, a comment ought to be critical and subjective. But I can´t. I love this movie. After a couple of years whit pale swedish movies I must say this gives hope for Swedish film. Since Ingmar Bergman it has been thin in the swedish gallery of moviecreators. A couple of years ago we had Lukas Moodysson whit "Fucking Åmål"... but... Collin Nutleys "Gossip" is a MOVIE.