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. :)

In "The Life Is a Schlager" we meet the nurse, mother and wife Mona. She is really interested in Melodifestivalen, a huge music competition in Sweden. She has even named her daughters after famous singers from Melodifestivalen.

Mona takes care of David, who is a disabled man. One day Mona discovers that David works on a melody. She writes the lyrics and sends it to Melodifestivalen. They accept and love the song! Therefore, Mona becomes famous overnight. But Mona soon learns that fame comes with a price.

I must say, in all honesty, that I really like this movie. Personally I think that it is a delightful tribute to Melodifestivalen. Mona could have been a little more honest. And yes, Monas husband could have been a bit nicer. But other than that I can´t find anything else to dislike.

I believe that you don´t have to be a fan of Melodifestivalen to like this movie. "The Life Is a Schlager" shows other important subjects. Family, diseases, respect, love and support is here too. At least if you ask me. I recommend this one. Grab the snacks and watch it.

ANYTHING LESS THAN A 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 IS IN- APP- RO- PRI- ATE!!!!!!!!!!!!

(Did you get my point there? Good.)

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".

This (Swedish) movie is the worst thing I have ever seen from Danish Susanne Bier's hand. This is too bad. Susanne Bier has made so fine movies as "Freud flyttar hemifrån..." (1991), "Brev til Jonas" (1992), "Det bli'r i familien" (1994), "Sekten" (1997) and the beautiful "Den Eneste Ene" (1999). After this one she made "Brødre" (2004) and the Oscar-nominated "Efter brylluppet" (2006). This script stinks. Not her fault altogether, as the script is by Jonas Gardell. But the fine, fine actors make some of the story believable. Most of all Helena Bergström as Mona, and Jonas Karlsson as David, and that may be a credit to the director, too.