Livet är en schlager

Mona Bergström is a sweet eurovision-obsessed woman in her 30's. She is married to a lazy husband and have 4 children, all named after her favorite Swedish eurovision popstars. Her brother is a crossdressing guy selftitled "Candy Darling". Mona works on a retirement home for disabled people, where she is responsible for taking care of a young man named David who suffers a movement restricting disease forcing him into a wheelchair. Davids parents has abandoned him as they wanted a normal child. Mona holds a big place in Davids heart, and vica versa. Davids goal is to get his parents to come and visit him, and he wants to show them that he is a great person, despite his handicap. Therefore he works with music on his computer, and his goal is to create a song, send it to "The Cardigans", a famous Swedish band and have them play the song and credit him, hoping his parents would spot it and want to visit him. One day when Mona is seeing David, she listens to one of Davids songs. Surprised by the great melody, she *steals* a copy and brings it home, where she writes lyrics for it. Being satisfied with the result, she records her voice along with the song and send it to "Melodi Festivalen", the Swedish preliminaries for Eurovision Song Contest, hoping she could archieve the fame she had dreamed about many times. Weeks later she gets a call from Swedish television, saying her song has been approved and she will be one of the 10 performers in the Swedish eurovision preliminaries...

I'm not spoiling anymore here.... view this movie - you have my best recommendation to do so. :)

Susanne Bier achieved great fame in Denmark for her previous movie "Den eneste ene" so her new movie was eagerly anticipated in Denmark even though it was in Swedish.

It is a new comedy about everyday people. This time it is about a woman who is crazy about "Melodi Festivalan", a song contest for pop music. Helena Bergström is simply wonderful as the main character and it is mainly because of her that the movie is bearable.

Otherwise the movie is predictable, so sweet it is bad for your teeth and with a ending that might been played down a notch or two.

After having lived in Sweden for half a year, I truly appreciated this look into modern Swedish living. Schlager is to the Swedish what the ocean is to lemmings. They are all drawn to it instinctively.

A full-time nurse with three kids and an unemployed husband gets her lucky break and breaks through as a Swedish superstar.

A lot of laughs and frustration. Good acting, nice photography and above all a compelling story. 9/10.

This is a feelgood comedy about ordinary people living extraordinary lives. It centres around a woman who is living her lifelong ambition and how it affects her and those who are close to her. Some parts can be seen as sickly sweet, but there are several dark undertones about how certain "different" people are perceived and treated in society today. Definitely worth watching.

This movie gives you a chance to laugh out loud. It`s not so very great but some of the actors are really outstanding. It stars Helena Bergström (as Mona) and she´s always believable but the acting of Jonas Karlsson(as the CP-injured youngster) and Björn Kjellman (as Monas "transa"-brother Candy-Kenny) are really outstanding. If Oscar-nominees for best co-acting were giving to actors in a non-english spoken movie this year, these two guys should really be in the "pipeline".